Painted Blue
by itsfaberrytaboo
Summary: From a prompt at my old tumblr. Quinn always tried to convince herself she was meant to be with Finn Hudson... not the girl she slapped on prom night. (Light D/s AU, soul bond, soul mates, supernatural elements)
1. Chapter 1

"And your queen is… Santana Lopez!"

She had no idea where it had all went wrong.

Maybe it was last week, when she'd indulged herself with a candy bar, sighing into velvet chocolate and remembering… things. Or maybe it had been when she was sixteen years old and she gave it up for a wine cooler and a boy with honey on his lips. Or perhaps thirteen, on a hot, sweaty Friday afternoon when she'd first slipped on a pristine pair of white tennis shoes and smoothed a flirty red skirt over red spanx. Or three months earlier, when she'd touched the white bandage protecting her new nose and smiled.

Maybe, just maybe, it had been that time when she was six years old and she'd stolen a cupcake from the kitchen at eleven after midnight, creeping upstairs to sit on her bed and flip through a fashion magazine by flashlight.

Then again, it could have been when her father's sperm met her mother's – okay, ew, no. She wasn't going to think about that.

And as the applause rained over her and her crown – her glittery, silver, perfect crown – was perched onto the head of someone that wasn't _her_, she glanced over and saw a petite brunette standing next to a tree.

And Quinn Fabray knew _exactly_ where it had all gone wrong.

Her first instinct, as it had been when she'd walked into school and saw posters of her former self plastered along the walls, was to run. So run she did, ignoring the protests of her date. Sam could fend for himself for a little while.

The one voice she couldn't ignore, though, was the one currently calling after her.

"Quinn, wait!"

That voice, she thought to herself. That stupid voice that had started _everything_.

Why had she joined the glee club anyway? Quinn wondered, as she placed two hands on one of the bathroom sinks to steady herself. What had it brought her? Granted, it had been fun, and though she had missed cheerleading while she was pregnant, and rejoined the first chance she'd gotten, there was a certain freedom to be… _Quinn_ that glee had afforded her, something she hadn't felt since she was thirteen years old. Even if it meant just sitting on the risers and reading a book while Schuester "rapped" and the others fell over him like mindless sycophants.

She'd joined to keep an eye on her boyfriend, because that's the way things were supposed to go. The cheerleader and the star quarterback. Movies, books were written about stories like theirs. Every sugary pop song in the world probably started out as an ode to the football player and his girl.

And now she didn't even have that.

"This is all your fault," Quinn snarled, turning on Rachel Berry with blazing eyes.

Rachel Berry. Rachel Barbra Berry, standing in front of Quinn in a pink dress, eyes wide and confused. And concerned.

As always.

It was infuriating. Because Rachel Berry was the reason Quinn was in glee club in the first place – to keep manhands away from her boyfriend. Because Rachel Berry was the reason Finn was under the delusion he was some sort of hero destined to bring greatness to their little group, even though he couldn't lead anyone if they were trailing behind him on a leash. He was sweet, mostly, he was a good football player and he tried to be a good guy.

But it had been hard, Quinn thought, staring at Rachel and fighting to get her breathing under control. Hard to feel him slip through her fingers, giving up popularity and the American Dream for a five foot two talented diva with doe brown eyes and a smile that never seemed to know when to quit. Quinn had lain awake many a night wondering how she'd be able to get Finn out of Rachel's grasp, but every idea had been shattered the day she'd come to school and heard him bragging.

"Tapped it," he'd said. As if taking someone's virginity was meant to be reduced to two words, a slang of bravado and high fives from Puck and the other guys. Quinn's chest had burned, and she'd emptied a pint of Ben & Jerry's as soon as she'd gotten home.

Her only consolation, the one thought that had brought a shiny glimmer of hope into everything, as she stared at the bottom of the empty carton, had been that Rachel and Finn _still_ hadn't bonded.

"Quinn, I don't understand," Rachel said, and for god's sake she actually took a step closer. "What's my fault?"

She laughed, a dry, humorless sound, and shook her head. "That should've been me up there," and ugh, it was getting worse because her voice came out like a _whine_, like a stupid puppy waiting at the door for her master to come home.

"There's always next year," Rachel said sympathetically, and Quinn snarled again.

"Oh, shut up, Berry, have you ever lost at anything in your life?"

She rubbed a hot, shaking hand over her face, trying to remind herself that they weren't freshmen anymore, that she and Rachel were actually _kind of_ friends now. They'd even sung a duet together, after the idiot had cracked across Rachel's nose like it was a tennis ball. And thank God she hadn't gone through with her plans to have Quinn's nose.

Rachel Berry without her nose… just wasn't Rachel.

Although good luck explaining that to Finn. Though she knew the bond hadn't happened when they'd had sex – Finn wasn't wearing any telltale ring the next day – Quinn knew that he was still trying to mold Rachel into what he thought she ought to be. Quieter. Less opinionated. Stifling her dreams in favor of his. He carried himself with an air that told the other students of William McKinley High School that he was Rachel Berry's Dominant, and she followed after him like a good dutiful submissive, and Quinn Fabray's blood boiled.

That was supposed to be her.

Except she didn't know if that was supposed to be her. No one really knew, after all, not until if and when the bond happened. Because sometimes it did, and sometimes it didn't. Quinn had heard about it when she was little, that sometimes people were destined to be soul mates, and when the time was right the bond would reveal itself. It was always accompanied by a tangible sign – something both people would wear to signify to others that they were, for lack of a better word, taken. If you were a submissive woman, you'd find yourself wearing a necklace; the submissive guys always received a collar. And every Dominant would have their bond established by a ring on the right hand.

She'd watched, nearly every day for months, Rachel Berry hope to bond with Finn Hudson. Quinn had watched, nearly every day, as Rachel kissed Finn, the hope in her eyes dimming a little each time nothing happened.

"I lost my first competition at the age of five," Rachel was explaining, and Quinn rolled her eyes. "In my defense, I had a cold, I was in a bad mood, and frankly it felt rather satisfactory to be disqualified for attempting to sabotage my rival's performance."

Quinn stared. "How do you sabotage a competition for five year olds?"

Rachel glanced around and sighed. "I hid her teddy bear. She was inconsolable until they found it in my bag. I hadn't fully zipped it and well. His foot was out."

From teddy bears to crack houses, Quinn thought, but it did nothing to assuage her anger. "That was meant to be me up there," she snapped, pointing to the bathroom door for good measure. "But no, now everyone knows me as fatass Lucy Caboosey, and it's all your fault."

"Quinn, I didn't hang the pos—"

"I know you didn't!" Quinn practically yelled, and took a deep breath. She knew Rachel hadn't, it was Puck and Zizes, his latest fetish. There was no way Rachel could have known, would ever have known. The last person Quinn would have ever let see that side of herself would've been Rachel Berry.

"Then what—"

"It was supposed to be us," Quinn managed through clenched teeth. "Finn and I were meant to be together, don't you get it? That's how this plays out, Rachel. The quarterback and the cheerleader, god, how can you be so smart and so dumb at the same time? Your dreams are too big for him, _I'm_ the one who's supposed to be his girl. King and Queen, the most popular kids in high school. And you _ruined_ it."

And she was speaking again, with that same prim attitude she always had, and her nose (that she absolutely did not need to change) slightly stuck in the air.

"Quinn, I'm sorry that you don't like the fact that Finn and I are together now, but we are, and you're just going to have to accept that."

"Where's his ring?"

She knew that was low, and she regretted it for a moment when Quinn saw the expression of hurt that crossed over Rachel's face. She knew Rachel was in love with him, in that adorable puppy kind of way, where she was willing to ignore anything and everything because Finn was meant to be her leading man. Because Quinn knew, as much as she had her own dreams, Rachel had hers as well. The stunning young ingénue and her costar, a handsome and bright leading man who had just enough of his own light to shine on her. It could've been Jesse, Quinn thought. She might have liked Jesse, until he egged Rachel. But he was the only one to match Rachel in talent, and Finn paled in comparison.

And besides, Finn was hers.

"I'm sorry you lost, Quinn, but I—"

"He's supposed to be mine. We're supposed to be together, and we were supposed to win. And we didn't, because of you. You did this to me!"

Rachel rocked backward with the force of the slap, her hand flying to her cheek even as Quinn stared in shock. She glanced down at her hand, at her open palm, scarcely able to believe that she'd actually struck someone.

She'd hit Rachel Berry.

"I am so sorry," Quinn whispered, the tears already on their way as much as she tried to fight them.

Her hand hurt; it burned, and she looked at it again, puzzled. Her fingers flexed, and with a sting that grew ever hotter, ever more apparent on her fourth finger, Quinn's world came crashing down around her.

"Q-Quinn?"

She tore her gaze away from her hand long enough to look at Rachel, who was staring at herself in the mirror. Rachel's fingers gripped at her own chest, just below her neck, toying in confusion with what lay against her collarbone.

The necklace glittered in the harsh high school bathroom light.

Quinn had seen it before, on other students. But the two interlocking circles – one silver, the other gold – that rested against Rachel's tan skin seemed almost foreign to her, though Quinn couldn't take her eyes off of it. The rings were held to Rachel by a slim gold chain, and Quinn shook her head.

Maybe she'd been wearing that all along, she told herself. After all, she hadn't been paying attention to Rachel; she'd been concentrating all night on Sam, and making sure he didn't lumber all over her toes in that mess of moves he called dancing. Rachel had been wearing a pink dress, pink shoes, and her hair had been curled up in waves that fell around her shoulders. A pink corsage.

Had there been a necklace? She hadn't noticed.

But there definitely… there definitely hadn't been a ring.

And yet… now there was, securely tucked on the fourth finger of Quinn's right hand.

It, too, was gold and silver, fashioned into two metallic ropes that entwined around each other so that if you weren't looking carefully, you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. Quinn held up her hand into the light, turning it this way and that as the ring sparkled.

It was, she realized, a perfect fit.

"This can't be possible," Quinn whispered to herself. She looked at Rachel again; when she spoke, her voice was pleading, and also accusing.

"You had that on when you came here tonight. Right? _Right_?"

Rachel hesitated, her eyes glued on the slim band encircling a finger of Quinn's hand, which she was still holding up in front of herself. She shook her head.

"I wasn't wearing it, Quinn."

"Yes you _were_," Quinn retorted, her breath once again coming in short, panicked gasps. "You just forgot! You – one of your dads gave it to you, you just forgot, _there is no way this is happening, _I can't – not to you, not to you…"

She trailed off, and Rachel finally turned from looking at herself in the mirror to regard Quinn. Her brown eyes were full and solemn as she quietly asked, "Did you forget you were wearing a ring this evening?"

She wanted to say that yes, she had forgotten it. Quinn's racing mind was already concocting a story about how her father had gotten it for her on her fifteenth birthday, and how she hadn't really liked it and stuffed it into the back of her jewelry box, because really, she had _so many_ rings. Being a Fabray meant you had whatever you wanted: a new car when you got your driver's license; a new wardrobe every school year.

Parents who weren't bonded, and a father who thought cheating on his wife was more important than supporting his terrified, pregnant daughter.

"No," Quinn said, deflating and leaning against one of the sinks. "I wasn't wearing it."

"I don't understand," Rachel said, pulling some tissues out of her purse. She held one up, offering to help Quinn, and to her surprise, Quinn nodded.

She wanted to laugh then, because as Rachel wiped her eyes gently, Quinn Fabray realized the truth, the absurdity that was her life.

She was seventeen years old, stuck in the bathroom instead of out enjoying her prom. Her baby was off being raised by someone else, someone who just happened to be _Rachel Berry's mother_. She had lost prom queen, was dating a boy who was supposed to raise her social standing but couldn't even climb the first rung of the ladder… and now she had apparently bonded.

To the girl she'd hated since she was thirteen years old.

God, life sucked.

"I don't understand this—"

"There's nothing to understand," Quinn said. "It's a mistake."

"My dad says fate doesn't make a mistake…"

"Well clearly this time it did," Quinn bit out, trying to hold herself up against the sink even as her arms shook.

There was no way she was going to do this, she told herself. She knew now that she was a Dominant, but Quinn had always expected that. She was just a little too demanding, a little too in control… but she'd always thought that of Rachel too. Someone who stormed into a room demanding all the attention, and then stormed out of the room with the same amount of self-absorption? How could she be a submissive?

But there had been the tissues…

And hadn't Rachel come to her when Finn had found out about the baby's real father?

Quinn couldn't help but smile, just a little, remembering when she had stormed up to Finn while he and Rachel had been talking.

"I'll just g—" Rachel had started to say.

"No, you stay."

And Rachel had sat down. Slowly. Dutifully.

"But that doesn't mean I'm your Dominant," Quinn said, then flushed crimson, realizing she'd spoken aloud.

"No, I suppose it doesn't," Rachel said carefully.

Her fingers still played with the necklace, and Quinn had to fight the urge to rip it off her.

No way was she going to be bonded to Rachel Berry.

God, Santana would have a field day with this. If she found out. And she wouldn't, Quinn resolved. No one would.

Her fingers found the ring; she pulled, and watched as it slid effortlessly over one knuckle.

"What are you doing?"

She slid it back. "Just testing something," she muttered. She looked at Rachel and tipped her chin towards the necklace.

"Take it off."

"What?"

"Take. It. Off."

"But—"

"Look, Rachel, I don't know what delusion you're operating under _this time_, but it's a mistake. This whole thing is a mistake."

"My dad says—"

"I don't care what your dad says!" Quinn snapped. "I mean, okay, your dads are bonded, then, I guess?"

Rachel nodded slowly, not even looking at Quinn. Her teeth worried her bottom lip at the same time her fingers still worried the necklace, and Quinn had to stop herself from reaching out and pulling Rachel's hand away.

"And they met, I don't know, when they were—"

"Twelve," Rachel finished, finally done playing with the necklace. Her hands behind her back, she leaned against the wall opposite Quinn, not looking at her.

"And I'm guessing they didn't hate each other?"

"I don't hate you. I never did."

"That's not the point! The point is your dads actually love each other, and I – I don't love you, Berry!"

Her finger burned, and Quinn felt sick. She felt sick because not only did she feel angry, she was feeling so many other things: confusion, worry, bewildered and… something else.

Something that she couldn't quite put her finger on, but something that felt like… fear. It was the tiniest of an emotion, dancing just around the periphery of her brain, an emotion… brought about by the striking of a hand against a cheek, that now Quinn knew, without a doubt, stung. She could see the faintest of redness against Rachel's face, and Quinn wanted to throw up.

Because she knew the fear wasn't hers.

It was _Rachel's._

"I don't love you either." It was soft, quiet, almost wounded, and Quinn wasn't sure that the confirmation of her own feelings made anything any better. Because there was still that fear, trickling like water from a fountain, and welling up around it was something that Quinn wasn't used to feeling, when it came to the little girl with the loud, obnoxious voice.

The urge to fix it. To comfort.

"I love Finn."

"Well… that's it then," Quinn decided, pushing herself off of the wall. She squared off against Rachel, nodding firmly.

"It's a mistake."

"A mistake," Rachel echoed, sounding as if she didn't believe it one bit.

"It happens," Quinn shrugged, but she hadn't heard of it happening at all. People were lucky when they were bonded, because not everyone was. People _wanted_ to be bonded; hadn't Rachel been fighting all this time to bond herself to Finn? And now…

"Take it off," Quinn said again.

"I—"

"Take it off, Rachel!" She was almost pleading, and Quinn squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before reopening them. "We know this can never work, how was this ever supposed to work? We don't… we don't even like each other, we're barely even friends—"

"Celine Dion sang about that, and I'm sure you remember how the story ended."

"This isn't Beauty and the Beast, Rachel, god, you are so frustrating!"

"You're the one who surprisingly recognized the movie I was referencing."

"Do you _ever_ turn the Broadway off?"

"No, I do not."

They were quiet for a moment, and Quinn was even more unnerved to realize that the burn of the ring on her finger had settled into a warmth in her chest. She stood there in the school bathroom with Rachel – why did all of their encounters have to happen in the bathroom? – realizing this could never work. Rachel had just bonded to the girl who was her sworn nemesis, and yet she still found time to fit a musical into the conversation.

It almost made Quinn smile.

Almost.

"Do you really want me to take it off?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because we're not meant to be together."

"Quinn." Now it was Rachel's turn to come off of the wall, and take a few steps forward to Quinn. "Fate doesn't make mistakes. I just – it doesn't, all right? You and I both know, we've both heard the stories. For better or worse, you and I are joined now. You're supposed to be my mis—"

"No!" Quinn shook her head violently, ignoring the little chill that ran up her arms and settled at the base of her neck. "Don't you dare say that, Rachel, it's not true. We're not meant to do this."

"The ring and the necklace would beg to differ."

"Oh yeah?" Quinn ripped the ring off her finger and held it up in triumph, ignoring the fact that with that one movement, she felt as if something more than a piece of metal had been torn from her.

She hadn't felt that way since Beth.

"It's just a ring, Rachel," Quinn said, holding it up again to the light, watching as it coursed through the empty circle and shone on Rachel's tear-stained face.

… had she started crying before or after Quinn took off the ring? She hadn't noticed.

"It's just a ring, and that's just a necklace, and we're just two stupid high school kids that fate thought he could play a joke on. I don't love you, you don't love me, and it's not going to work."

"But—"

"It's not going to work! So just… take it off. Take it off, and go back to Finn, and be in love. It's what you want, isn't it?"

"No."

"What?"

"I'm not taking it off," Rachel said resolutely.

"Rachel—"

"I know that I'm supposed to do what you tell me to," Rachel said, "Because like it or not… we're bonded."

Quinn looked away.

"And you say you don't love me. But Finn does." Quinn snorted, and Rachel pressed on. "He _does_, and I love him."

"Then why won't you take it off?"

"Maybe because I'm a stupid romantic," Rachel said, as Quinn moved towards the door and placed her hand on the knob. She looked back at Rachel.

"Maybe because I still believe in that one great love, that's better than fairytales, better than any song, even better than any musical. The one person that's meant for me, has been meant for me even before the stars existed."

"You believe in the impossible," Quinn muttered.

She thought she'd found that. First with a boy who was the perfect choice. And then again with the boy that had been _her_ choice.

She'd ended up with nothing. No crown, and a baby who probably would never know she even existed.

"I have a place in my Tony award acceptance speech—"

"Oh of course you do," Quinn interrupted, and Rachel huffed. It was so like their usual dynamic that some of the pressure in Quinn's chest eased. But not by much. Her finger ached from the absence of the ring, that she was now rolling around in her other hand.

"I have a place in my Tony acceptance speech for this great love. You would think I would have already filled out the name, but I haven't."

"Why?" Quinn asked. She told herself she didn't care to hear the answer. She opened the bathroom door.

"Because I don't tell fate what to do. And tonight it seems I've been completely correct in that. So you can ignore it all you want, Quinn Fabray, but I won't. We need to talk about this."

"And that's where you're wrong," Quinn said. "I'm not talking to you about this, or anything else, Rachel. Take the necklace off. Go back to Finn. It's what we both want."

She moved back through the hall to the gymnasium, barely cognizant of the fact that Rachel was following her. Quinn found Sam easily in the crowd and slipped into his offered arm, kissing his cheek.

"Everything all right?" he asked.

She glanced around with a smile, which faded only a little as she noticed Rachel, speaking to Finn. He was gesturing wildly at the necklace, his face angry and confused.

She was still holding the ring. Quinn dropped it into her purse.

"I'm fine," she said to Sam, smile still firmly in place.

"I'm just fine."


	2. Chapter 2

_Take it off._

That was easily enough done; ever since prom the ring had rested in a drawer of her bedside table.

It was taking it off of her _mind_ that was proving the most difficult for her. And it didn't help that the following Monday, after two days of constant ignored texts and at least 4 unanswered phone calls, the last one of which was at _three a.m._, the first voice she heard was the last one she wanted to hear.

"Quinn!"

She turned around slowly, resplendent in the white and red of high school hierarchy, and arched one perfect eyebrow. "What?"

"We need to talk."

"Where's Finn? Don't you usually walk the halls with him?"

Rachel had the good sense to at least appear flustered, and she glanced around, as if she expected the tree to grow out of the floor any minute.

"I-I told him that I needed to go to the library. A bit of last minute studying."

The necklace glittered against her collarbone. It shone in the fluorescent lighting, Quinn thought, a lot like her crown had, in the spotlight as it was placed on Santana's head.

"Lying to the boyfriend," Quinn said, turning away from Rachel and beginning to move down the hall. "If it's a storybook teenage breakup you want, you're on your way."

"Quinn, please, we _need_ to talk."

With a roll of her hazel eyes she stopped again, this time to lean against the wall, tipping her chin at one of the freshman cheerleaders, who practically let out a squeal as if she'd been touched by greatness, bless her. Still got it, Quinn thought, and wondered how many people the girl would tell. It settled low in her belly, that familiar feeling that had sustained her ever since she was thirteen. _Pride_.

And just under it, another feeling, this one different, but not quite unfamiliar. She couldn't say she'd never felt anything like it, because she'd had. Once again in the bathroom, during prom night. That night she'd felt fear. And now, on a Monday morning just before first period, Quinn Fabray felt Rachel's worry. It aggravated her, annoyed her, because she didn't like it; it made her very fingers itch to fix it. Quinn glanced down at the fourth finger of her right hand.

Rachel noticed the gesture – and the emptiness.

"You're still not wearing it?"

"I'm not going to wear it. There's no point."

"But… don't you want to know what it's like? Don't you want to know _why_?"

"No?"

"I-I mean, I don't really know why, I don't… I never even thought you were gay."

"Shut up!" Quinn glanced around frantically; no one was around and her racing heart calmed. She moved around so that this time Rachel was against the wall with Quinn towering over her. Their usual position, she thought.

Their usual, intimate position.

"Listen to me, Berry," Quinn hissed, glaring down at her. "I am not putting that ring on, I am not bonded to you, and I definitely am not _gay_. God, you're such a pervert."

"Being gay isn't perverted, Quinn," Rachel said with a sniff, and Quinn closed her eyes because of course, of course she knew that, and she knew what Rachel had gone through because of her dads. And a lot of it at Quinn's own directive.

"And there's certainly no shame if you were gay. Actually I think it would explain quite a few things."

With an angry growl Quinn slapped the wall, dangerously close to Rachel's head, and she closed her eyes again when she noticed Rachel flinch. Quinn ran a hot hand over her face and stepped back.

"I'm not going to hit you," she said, trying to gentle her voice as much as she could through the cacophony of students milling about them. It caused her to actually lean in towards Rachel; if anyone was actually paying attention to them it would seem that they were sharing secrets.

She could smile at the irony, if she wanted.

"Go to class, Rachel," Quinn said wearily. She was tired, both from Rachel's incessant phone calls and the fact that she couldn't sleep anyway. "Go to the library and do your studying. Or go find Finn. Go do… whatever. But just go."

"But—"

"Please?" She couldn't believe she was saying please. She was a Dominant now, wasn't she? But she wasn't Rachel's. "It'll be the best for both of us."

Rachel tried one last time. "You don't want to know why?"

"What difference will it make?" Quinn asked with a shrug. "You're not in love with me, you're in love with Finn. You said so yourself."

"And you said you don't love me," Rachel said, looking at Quinn as if she didn't believe that one bit.

"Exactly. So there's nothing to understand, no reason to talk. No point to…" She gestured towards Rachel's necklace. "That. So you might as well just go find your boyfriend."

Rachel stood in front of Quinn, silent for a few moments, before she finally tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded, hugging her books close to her chest as she walked off.

Rachel had rattled her. Rachel had _always_ rattled her, so today was no different, and yet it was. Quinn had always put up with Rachel's persistence, her determined way of caring just so damn much, but today… today it was too much. Thank God there were just three days of school left. Now all she'd have to do was keep away from Rachel until then, and maybe, just maybe, she could forget all about that damn ring over the summer.

She knew she probably wouldn't be lucky enough for _Rachel_ to forget about it over the summer. But it was worth a try.

But by the time lunch rolled around, Quinn was no closer to getting Rachel and the ring off her mind than she'd been prom night. Santana had cornered her once already, to ask who she thought Rachel was bonded to, and Quinn suspected that Santana believed her about as much as Rachel did, when she'd shrugged and said she had no clue. But at least Santana knew when to leave well enough alone.

If there was one thing Quinn hated, it was the constant whispers of high school, the rumor mill that was more often than not fueled by Jacob Ben Israel's blog. Quinn knew that Rachel had saved her once from that same blog; honestly, who gives up their underwear to protect a pregnant girl? (And why did that settle in her belly like warmth, making that Cheerios pride smaller and smaller, until it was almost gone?)

But Quinn hadn't been able to repay the favor; it hadn't even taken 12 hours before the news of Rachel's necklace was front page news on Jacob's blog that Saturday. And now everyone wanted to know who Rachel Berry was effectively collared to, who held the key? And naturally they would all ask Quinn Fabray, because she was the queen of the school.

A queen without a crown, she thought bitterly, and immediately her hand flew up when Jacob Ben Israel himself approached her with a microphone.

"If you don't want that microphone somewhere that will be very embarrassing for medical professionals to remove, you will get it out of my face."

And he was gone. She smirked, and made her way to the lunchroom.

The good thing about being captain of the Cheerios was that Quinn was never lacking for seatmates in the cafeteria. She'd spent far too many half-hours, before she was thirteen and thin, sitting by herself, trying not to look as if she was stuffing her face, trying unconsciously to fold within herself so she looked, well, not as fat. It never worked, and someone always upended her tray with a laugh, and she always consoled herself with a candy bar or a piece of pie at home.

But not anymore. Now there were giggles and swapping of celery sticks and carrots, now there were whispered secrets and a glance to her left that revealed a boy too tall for his own good, a sweet smile on his face as he carried his petite girlfriend's lunch to their table and sat down with her.

Quinn chomped down on her carrot stick with probably a little more violence than was necessary, and tried not to look at them.

That had once been her, she thought. The football team and the cheerleaders used to sit together, and now Finn had defected to sit with the glee club, and with Rachel. He'd given up organizing plays and plans to steal the rival team's mascot for talking about solos and set lists for next year's regionals. Accepting the pudding cup that Rachel pulled out of her lunch bag with a smile.

They were so gross, she thought to herself. And now she wanted pudding.

Quinn caught Rachel glance her way and her own eyes flew back to her food; she concentrated on finishing her lunch with gusto, and only looked up once more, just in time to see Finn lean in to whisper something into Rachel's ear. And Rachel's face immediately changed, even as, unnoticed by Finn, she looked to Quinn again.

Quinn was rooted to the spot as Rachel shook her head, the answered "no" clear on her lips. Quinn couldn't help but watch as Finn got angry, just as he always did. As he grabbed up his own tray and stood up, stomping off. As he always did.

Leaving Rachel behind. As he always did.

And Rachel knew she was staring, because her eyes found Quinn's for the third time, and with that third time came another twist in her gut, a small twinge of sadness that wasn't her own.

Rachel turned back and began to talk to Mercedes, throwing a smile on her face. Quinn got up and left the cafeteria.

Her first instinct was to find Finn. To talk to him, to _sweet-talk_ him, to wheedle him back into realizing that they were meant to be. But he was nowhere in the hallway and it didn't matter, because Quinn's polished white shoe clad feet carried her directly to an office she knew well.

"Q, what are you doing here? I'm supposed to be having a conference call with Obama in ten minutes."

She drummed her fingers soundlessly on the back of the chair before walking round and sitting in it, her back ramrod straight as usual. "I need advice."

"Condoms. You should have asked the first time." Sue Sylvester folded her hands together and leaned across her desk, looking at Quinn.

She rolled her eyes. "It's not about that."

"Unless you're here to ask me what's the best way to style Will Schuester's hair, the answer to which is motor oil and a lighter, I suggest you go back to working on your splits before you're running suicides this afternoon."

"I got a ring."

"Well, very nice, Q, but this is still information I don't need to know, so—"

"Coach. I got _a ring_."

Whether it was the words finally sinking in or the tremulous, almost tearful way Quinn said it, she saw coach Sylvester sit up in her seat and blink her eyes for a moment, before settling back almost casually. Keeping up the façade, Quinn knew. If there was anyone who cared more for her Cheerios than Sue Sylvester, Quinn hadn't met them yet.

"When?"

"Prom night."

"Sam?" Coach said. "Then why are you looking as if your worst nightmare has come true?"

Quinn looked outside, out at the sunny Lima day and a few of the students milling about, having their lunch in the grass under the trees.

"Because it wasn't Sam."

"Well, well, well, plot twist," Coach said, steepling her fingers. "I'm gathering your prospective partner is less than ideal."

"Sh- _he_ isn't ideal. He isn't ideal at all."

Quinn could feel the color flood her face at her slip-up; she prayed Coach hadn't noticed, but something about the way she was looking at Quinn told the captain of the Cheerios that she'd probably never be that lucky.

"Not rich? Dumb? I haven't seen Hudson with a collar so it can't be him."

Quinn winced. "No, it's not Finn," she said softly.

"So tell me about… him."

Quinn sighed inwardly. There was no way she was going to be able to do this without giving it away, she thought. And anyway, how the hell did you describe Rachel Berry?

Rachel Berry was beyond description.

She took a deep breath.

"Loud," she decided on finally. "Loud, and obnoxious, and infuriating. Always in my face, never letting up, just… always _there_. And he's short, god he's so short, like how is a person that short? But I mean I guess he's smart, except he really makes some stupid decisions all the time…" Quinn knew she was rambling, and it didn't escape her that she was doing the exact same thing that the person she was describing did. All. The damn. Time.

It was kind of cute.

No it wasn't!"

"It's just… he's not for me. There's no way he could be for me, because we hate each other, and I'm kind of a bitch to him. But he never seems to care, he just follows me around like some puppy, waiting to see if I need to talk or something. And I hate him. I can't stand him, but he's a pretty good singer. I really think her voice could reach to the heavens if she tried hard enough, or maybe that's where her voice came from, I don't know. But it's like when she sings there's nothing else, like I can't hear anything else but her and—"

Quinn stopped short.

_Her._

"My god," Coach said slowly, staring at her. "You've bonded with the girl from the lullaby league."

Quinn looked out the window again. The students were gone; it was time to trickle back to class and be bored, waiting for the ring of the bell. One step closer to summer.

One step away from Rachel, for three whole months.

Bliss.

"It'll never work," she said. "I'm not gay."

"Well, good, because I've already reached my quota with Lopez and Pierce; one more and we might as well change our name to the Fruit Loops."

Quinn smiled a little then, relieved that Coach believed her. Her relief was short-lived though, when Coach leaned across the desk again and regarded her seriously.

"You've bonded with her. Fate obviously knows something you don't."

"I think I know myself better than some stupid… supernatural ritual that magically makes necklaces and rings show up. We bonded when we argued!"

"But you bonded."

"I slapped her and we bonded, this can't be a good thing!"

Quinn's voice was desperate; it was almost as if she was pleading, praying to Sue Sylvester to find her an out. Some way, any way, that she would be able to get out of being bonded to Rachel Berry. But instead, Coach just shrugged.

"Love, hate, it's a very thin line. And both of them are fueled by one thing, Q."

"What?" she asked reluctantly, afraid to hear the answer.

"Passion," Coach said, nodding her head to punctuate the statement. "When the bond establishes itself, it can't differentiate between the emotions, whether it's great love, or great hate, or great pain. When you slapped Rapunzel—"

"Rachel."

"—Renee, all the bond knew was that you were feeling emotion, that you were pretty passionate about what you were feeling right at that minute. And that passion you were feeling? Was towards the person wearing that necklace right now."

"I am not passionate about Rachel Berry!"

"Tell me again what it's like when she sings?"

"I hate her!"

"I think you said her voice came from the heavens? Hard to believe that, since she's so low to the ground."

"Stop insulting her!"

Coach Sylvester smirked, and Quinn groaned. She'd known this was a bad idea. Going to Coach for advice was like going to Schue for advice. Well, no, going to Schuester was worse. At least Coach tried. Schue probably would've made Quinn's predicament next year's first glee assignment.

They'd probably cover Evanescence songs.

"What are you going to do?"

She really did sound concerned, and for that Quinn was grateful, even as she replayed Coach's words over in her head. She only knew a very little bit about the bond; since her own parents hadn't bonded what Quinn knew had been from word of mouth at school or from books. She knew that the bond usually established itself through a big emotional upheaval or physically, like through a kiss or sex. Which was probably why Rachel had been trying so hard.

But to bond to someone when you slapped them? She couldn't wrap her mind around it. Quinn hated the fact that she'd slapped Rachel; just the wounded look on Rachel's face had had Quinn wishing she could cut the offending hand off. Instead, all she could do was resolve never to do it again… but now the damn bond was there, making her feel even guiltier.

Because she'd hit someone that she'd kind of been friends with. And bonded with someone she didn't love.

There was no way she could win.

"I'm not going to do anything."

"Well, I do see that you're not wearing your ring."

"She won't take the necklace off," Quinn replied with an angry sigh. "Doesn't she know it would just be easier if she let me have Finn? I can… stay here in Lima and be his wife and she can go to New York and win her EGOT and—"

"Her what?"

"Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony," Quinn explained. "She's always talking about it."

"And it sounds as if you listened."

"Because she's always talking about it!" Quinn repeated. "Me and Rachel, we're not going to happen. Nothing's going to happen. I don't love her, and she loves Finn."

"Then why did you come to me for advice?" Coach asked. She glanced up at the clock. "I guess Obama's not going to call; he probably wouldn't have been happy with what I had to tell him anyway. Blow it off the map, I say."

Quinn quirked an eyebrow and nodded, then bit her lip. "I don't know what to do," she whispered. "First Beth, and my dad, and now this… what do I do?"

"I can't tell you that," Sylvester said, and her voice was kind as she regarded her cheerleading captain. "What I can tell you is that that bond's not going away, Q. People don't break these bonds. These bonds, they're there for life, and if you can find a way to make it work you'll be pretty damn lucky."

"Well I can't," Quinn said miserably. "There's no way in my life that I can be bonded to _her_."

She spent the rest of her classes not paying any bit of attention to anything; it was just as well that it was the end of the school year and the teachers had given up actually trying to teach them anything constructive. As luck would have it her last period had chosen to watch Beauty and the Beast; Quinn doodled in her notebook while trying not to listen to the words of Mrs. Potts.

_Barely even friends, then somebody bends unexpectedly…_

Two more days, she thought as the bell rang and her classmates cheered, tearing out of the room and out into the halls. Quinn followed behind, thinking to herself, when she heard it, just as she'd reached her locker.

"Quinn!"

Quinn thumped her head lightly against her locker door, then spun the combination, opening it. She didn't answer, but the small person that appeared at her right elbow didn't seem to care.

"I thought perhaps we could make plans to hang out this summer; my dads will be going on vacation for a couple of weeks and I've chosen not to attend with them, so I thought—"

"Wow, you and Finn will have the house all to yourselves," Quinn said, barely glancing at Rachel. "You two can _bond_ all you want. As loud as you want."

Why had she even said that? Quinn shuddered, and then felt herself grow irrationally angry at the idea of _Rachel_ with Finn.

Finn was hers.

"Finn and I will have ample time to spend together over the summer," Rachel said, her dark eyes betraying just how much Quinn's words had affected her, and Quinn turned away, digging through her backpack to find her car keys.

"But I thought that you might like to come over and… watch a movie or just spend the day, we could talk or whatever you'd like…"

"Look, Rachel." Quinn faced her with a deep breath. "I'm not coming over this summer. I don't want to watch a movie, I don't want to spend the day, I don't want to talk. So stop asking, it's not going to happen."

"Oh."

And it was that small "oh," so quiet and indescribably lost, that had Quinn Fabray wanting to kick herself. Because not only could she hear it but she thought she could feel it, and it made her disgusted with herself.

"What do you think would happen if we… did this whole bond thing?" Quinn asked suddenly, and Rachel stared at her. "Really, what do you think would happen, if we started dating, if we fell in love, if we lived out this bond?"

"Well I- I think maybe…we could be very happy, but of course I don't know for certain unless we—"

"We'd date, and we'd fall in love, and at the end of next year you'll go off to New York. You'll go off to New York and live your dream, and me?" Quinn looked off, irritated at the sudden rush of tears in her eyes.

"I'll stay here. I'll stay here, and I'll take care of my mom, and I'll maybe take some community classes, or learn real estate."

"Quinn, that's not true, you'll go—"

"I won't go anywhere, Rachel," Quinn said firmly. "I'm not like you. You don't belong here, Rachel, and if you ended up with me that's all you'd have. Is Lima, because all I have is this." Quinn gestured towards herself, towards her face. "And when this is gone, what do I have left?"

"Quinn, I—"

She shook her head. "You're better than this. You're better than Lima, you're better than him, and you're better than _me_."

"Quinn, will you let—"

"Go home, Rachel!" Quinn finally snapped. "Go home, and stay away from me. I don't want to see you, I don't want you to call, I don't want to come over, I don't want to hang out. I don't want _you_. Just… go home."

She knew the words were harsh, but she couldn't help it. Rachel Berry was standing in front of her in a ridiculous horse sweater and plaid skirt, with her hair pulled back from her face and she just looked so small, so little and fragile, but Quinn knew the voice that could come out of that girl was anything but.

Bigger than Lima. Bigger than all of them.

Rachel fidgeted for a moment, playing with her skirt, before looking at Quinn. "You may think you have all the answers, Quinn," Rachel said, her chin lifted, "And I'm not saying I have them, but I know you don't know everything. And you don't know how this works out." She looked down at her feet before turning her eyes up to look at Quinn through her long lashes.

"You're a very pretty girl, Quinn," Rachel said softly. "You're the prettiest girl I've ever met. But you're a lot more than that, and I'm not giving up. I-I'm in love with Finn, but this bond is here for a reason and I'm not giving up on it. I'm not giving up on you."

She was so indescribably tired. Quinn moved past Rachel, feeling much older than her seventeen years. "Have a nice summer, Rachel," was all she said as she walked away from her.

"I'll see you next year."

Quinn didn't look back.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing she'd put on when she rolled out of bed that morning was the sweater.

Off-white with wide black horizontal stripes, it was probably too warm for the Lima summer. But it didn't matter, they always hung out in the cool of the shade, sometimes even going to McKinley to hide out and talk under the bleachers. It was ironic, she supposed; school was the one place they all wanted to avoid and yet somehow they had still managed to gravitate there twice, and they were only three weeks into vacation.

She couldn't remember where she'd gotten the denim vest, or why she'd even bought it. Back then it hadn't matched her style. Now though, with its rough, frayed pockets and collar, it was perfect over the sweater. She smoothed down the material and smirked a little at herself in the mirror.

Her legs were still toned as she pulled on the pair of black fishnets; years of cheerleading would take time to wear off, she knew. The fishnets felt strange on her skin, prickly and more than a little itchy. But she wondered what the boys would think of them.

Ha, boys.

Her favorite part of the black shorts was the wide, studded belt; she'd gotten it just last Thursday, when she'd actually convinced the girls to make a rare trip to the mall. It had felt strange, and she'd gotten more than a few odd looks, but that had just been the icing on the cake.

The boots were knee-length and high-heeled; she'd had to teach herself to wear them and the girls liked to laugh at the occasional wobble she had. She knew they'd been hesitant to let her into their circle, but she'd proved her worth quickly enough. All it took was a few words – and a few puffs.

She'd taken the Sacred Heart of Jesus picture from the wall above her bed a few days ago, but a few vestiges of her former life still remained – like the rosary that she picked up from her bedside table. Long, with black beads on a silver chain capped by an imposing silver crucifix, it had been her grandmother's, and was a gift on her first communion. She draped it around her neck, joining it with a few other chains, and absurdly wondered if she ought to post a selfie on the internet.

She could imagine the comments she'd get, and she grinned.

She studied herself in the mirror once more and nodded, satisfied. But there was still something missing…

She spied the black crochet hat on the corner of her dresser, and in one swift move Quinn had seized it up and shoved it on top of her bright pink hair.

"Perfect," she muttered to herself, then glanced at the clock.

Ten a.m.

She'd make a sandwich or something, she thought; the Skanks were going to meet up at the park around eleven and make fun of everyone.

She was good at that.

She felt that familiar ache in her belly and she reached for her purse. When Quinn didn't find what she was looking for, her brow furrowed and she began a mad search through her room. She'd been without since ten p.m. last night, and now the craving was hitting her hard. She'd been surprised that she'd adapted so quickly, especially since the first time she'd nearly made herself sick by stifling the coughs. Coughing was weakness in front of the Skanks, and if there was one thing Quinn Fabray wasn't, it was _weak_.

"Ugh, come on, where are you?" she said aloud to the emptiness of her room, frustrated. She knew she could bum one or two from the other girls, but there was something almost empowering about having her own stash to pick from. Even if it did feel a little absurd to be making a frantic dash around her room, looking for one of the few things that could make her feel better.

"Looking for these?"

Judy's voice stopped the search, and Quinn slowly stood up from her position of looking under the bed. Her mother stood in the doorway to her room, a pack of Marlboro lights held gingerly in her hand.

Quinn sighed inwardly. Damn. "Yeah. You went through my purse."

"Are you on drugs?" Judy Fabray asked by way of answer, and Quinn rolled her eyes.

"No."

"You know, Quinnie," Judy said, and her daughter steeled herself for the inevitable lecture. "I was fine with the belly button ring."

Quinn hadn't thought that piercing her skin with a small dangly white flower would've hurt so much, but she'd nearly passed out. Mack had just laughed and punched her shoulder. It was funny, but the only thing that had hurt more than getting her belly pierced had been Beth.

_After_ Beth.

"And I'm not too happy about the nose ring, but I'm learning to deal with it."

The small silver loop hadn't hurt at all, and she hadn't even needed to hold anyone's hand for it, a realization that had filled her with a feeling not unlike winning a national cheerleading competition. No weakness. No fear.

"And I can't say that I'm enjoying the hair and your clothes; I don't think your father's child support ought to go towards you dressing this w—"

"Is there a point to this or can I go?" Quinn said, turning away from her mother and making a pretense of looking through her purse. Grabbing her lighter, she proceeded to flick it on and off a couple of times, watching the tiny flame.

Burn. Fade. Burn. Fade.

Like a ring on a finger, a tiny circle of metal resting inside a drawer.

A never-ending persistence, and the quiet cell phone sitting on a table.

"The point is, I'm worried about you," Judy said tersely, looking from the pack of cigarettes in her hand to her daughter.

"Well you don't need to be," Quinn replied. "I'm sure you have better things to do."

As if on cue he appeared, naked from the waist up, a towel wrapped around his midsection.

"You uh, you're out of soap now," he said awkwardly, looking first at Quinn then at Judy.

"Oh that's all right," Judy said, all too brightly, pink flooding her cheeks as she regarded him. "Why don't you go get dressed and we'll go out for a coffee?"

"Yeah, sure."

He disappeared and Judy turned back to her daughter, suddenly seeming more than a little uncomfortable.

"Who's that?" Quinn asked, taking the moment to retrieve her cigarettes from her mother's hand.

"Mark."

"Mark. What happened to Allen?"

"It didn't work out."

"Oh." Quinn nodded.

Mark, Allen, Raoul… Judy Fabray had been enjoying her new life as a single woman, something that Quinn deep in her heart was trying not to judge the woman for, but still… And she'd liked Allen. Raoul though, Raoul had been a little too interested in looking at _Quinn_. To Judy's credit he'd been out the door within five minutes of her daughter finally telling her.

She wondered how long Mark would last before her mother got bored and moved on. For a moment she wondered if her father was still seeing his "tattooed hussy," but as she hadn't heard from Russell Fabray ever since she'd… left home, Quinn wasn't sure she even gave a damn anymore.

Daddy's girl gone wild, she thought with another smirk.

"Are you sure you're not on drugs? Let me see your eyes."

"Mom!" Quinn growled, frustrated. "I'm not on drugs."

"Well what do you _do_ all day?"

"I.. hang out," Quinn shrugged. "We just talk."

"And smoke."

"I guess?"

"What about Brittany and Santana, why can't you hang out with them?"

Why _didn't_ she hang out with them, Quinn wondered. After all, they'd been her "best friends" since she was thirteen years old. And now Quinn wasn't even sure what Santana and Brittany were doing.

Probably each other.

"I just have a different set of friends now."

"I'm not sure I like it," Judy replied with a sniff. "I'm terrified I'll get a call that you're in jail, or worse."

"I hang out with people, that doesn't mean I'm a criminal," Quinn said, moving about her room to grab up things and put them back doing, avoiding her mom's gaze. "I'm not going to go tag buildings or rob a bank. We just talk."

"You could talk to me."

Quinn turned around. "What time will you be home tonight?"

Judy Fabray hesitated. "I don't know. You shouldn't wait up."

"I never do," Quinn said, and breezed past her mother to make her way downstairs to the kitchen.

Her mother chose not to follow her, either because she felt it wise not to interrogate her daughter again when she was in "one of her moods," as she dismissed them, or because Mark was waiting for her. Quinn really didn't want to think about that last one; it was bad enough that even though the walls were thick she'd taken to wearing her headphones to bed just on the off chance she'd hear something she really didn't want to.

She made up a sandwich and stuffed it into her bag, stepping out into the morning Lima air. She lit a cigarette, took a deep drag… and Quinn Fabray smiled.

As much as she liked hanging out with her newfound friends, Quinn was quickly discovering that the brief walk to wherever they were going to hang out that day was one of her favorite things. And it was nice once she turned the corner, the sidewalk quickly taking her away from her own neighborhood. She'd seen, once or twice, a curtain pulled back as she walked by, only to snap into place when she turned around. No doubt she was already the talk of the old blue-haired gossips, and Quinn wasn't sure she cared. It wasn't as if they had something else in their lives to look forward to. She might as well give them something to do.

"Oh poor girl," they'd probably say.

Poor little rich girl.

It was nice just to walk along, to enjoy the sights and sounds, the smell of the grass and trees. Just to be alone with her thoughts. She'd think about her Mom, about the different guys. About the amber-colored liquid that still dominated every glass her mother held. She'd think about school and college, about the Cheerios and Coach. She'd think about Finn and glee.

And always, inevitably, on her walk to join the Skanks for their daily loitering, Quinn's thoughts would turn to Rachel.

_You're the prettiest girl I've ever met. But you're a lot more than that._

She'd wanted to laugh, hearing those words come from the girl she'd tormented for years, but the knowledge of how much _that_ would hurt Rachel had held Quinn back. Three nights later, though, as she lay alone in her room, holding up the ring to the moonlight and looking through it, Quinn allowed herself to laugh.

Rachel Berry, who for years Quinn had treated as if she was dirt under her shoes, thought she was pretty. Thought she was the prettiest girl.

She'd laughed so hard she cried, burying her face into the pillow to stifle her sobs.

The next morning, she'd dyed her hair pink.

Quinn hadn't seen or heard from Rachel in the three weeks since school had let out for summer vacation; but Quinn was pretty sure after their conversation at school Rachel wouldn't want to see her anyway. Still, she'd half-expected Rachel to show up on her doorstep one morning. Quinn guessed Rachel had, for once, listened to her.

It hadn't escaped Quinn's notice that Rachel was _supposed_ to listen to her, now. And that only made her feel even worse for telling the younger girl that she effectively never wanted to see her again.

Summer vacation had always been strange for Quinn. She went from spending 6 hours of every 5 days with hundreds of other people, her Cheerios, and the glee club. She'd never admit it but they really had become like a small, _extremely_ dysfunctional family. And then when summer came along there was an emptiness. In a way it was a relief; she could be herself and have some of the pressure off of her, but there was also a nervousness, an uneasiness of suddenly being left to herself and her thoughts. Because as much as she liked it, as much as she lifted her face to the sun and breathed in the air as she made the last few steps to the park and her waiting group of juvenile delinquent friends, Quinn Fabray was scared of her thoughts.

She hadn't felt anything like what she'd felt on prom night and the ensuing days, though. Quinn could have sworn that she was, perhaps only slightly, tuning into Rachel; into the girl's doubts and fears. Oh, she couldn't read her mind; Quinn scoffed to herself. She wasn't as freaky as Berry claimed to be with her sixth sense. But still, there was always something niggling in the back of her mind and heart, something of an emotion that wasn't hers.

But she hadn't felt it in three weeks, and Quinn was pretty sure that it had all been just a fluke. The product of an overactive imagination. And as her new friends came into view, she resolved to put Rachel Berry as far out of her mind as she could.

"About time you made it, Fabray," Mack said, and Quinn grinned.

"It takes time to perfect this look," she said. "You think I roll out of bed like this?"

She greeted everyone in turn, fist-bumping Sheila and taking her place in the midst of them. Lighters were exchanged, cigarettes were lit, Quinn inhaled and felt at home. Truth be told, though Quinn had told her mother that she and the Skanks just hung out and talked, there wasn't really a lot of talking. Mostly they were just content to stand there smoking, making comments about whoever passed by, and every now and then one of them would run off to beat someone up for some reason or another. Quinn wasn't too keen on that part, especially when Sheila had joked about jumping her in.

She _hoped_ Sheila had been joking about jumping her in.

"Mm, damn, look at that. Now that's a nice view, shit."

Quinn turned her attention to where Mack was looking, and tilted her head.

The girl was jogging around the track in the park that stretched in front of them; her earbuds were plugged firmly into her ears and attached to the iPod that was fastened around her upper arm. The holster wrapped around a well-defined muscle and Quinn felt her mouth go dry.

She had dark brown hair, so dark it was almost black, pulled into a loose ponytail behind her head. She was small, really kind of short, Quinn reflected, but her legs, clad in navy blue spandex pants so tight it was like a second skin, seemed to go on for years. Under the spandex Quinn could just make out the ripple of even more well-defined muscle as the girl ran, and she shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

Quinn watched wordlessly as the girl ran past them; she was wearing a tank top, Quinn thought. Two of them, maybe, one a dark purple underneath a black one. She could see the swell of her breasts and Quinn took another deep inhale of her cigarette.

Damn.

"What do you think, Q?"

The girl was fading off into the distance on the other side of the track, away from them, but Quinn's eyes hadn't left her body as she jogged, until finally she turned to Mack.

"That ass," was all she said, and Mack grinned.

It felt nice, Quinn thought to herself, to finally be able to say things like that.

_I didn't even think you were gay._

As it turned out, maybe she was just a little bit, only slightly, maybe more than a little, probably more than most, in fact most likely very, very, extremely gay.

And that girl that was jogging in the park in the mid-morning of a Lima summer? She had an ass that made Quinn thank god for the pervert that had invented spandex.

"I'd smack it," Mack said, nodding.

"Oh yeah," Quinn agreed, suddenly finding herself lost in her thoughts. What would it be like, she wondered. To have that girl bent over her lap, that ass raised and ready for her hand? The old Quinn would've ran home and prayed for hours, if she'd had thoughts like that. The new Quinn though, with pink hair and a cigarette tucked between her fingers, and the freedom to finally look at girls without any teachers or parents or cheerleaders to catch her? Well, she was only more than willing to indulge her thoughts about dominating that girl, watching the smooth skin flush red with every strike of her hand.

Fantasies though, have a harsh way of crashing back down into reality. Which is exactly what happened when the petite jogger with the dark brown hair and amazing ass came back around to the skanks on her second lap. Quinn was still watching, and was in the midst of actually licking her lips when hazel eyes met dark brown ones, and that's when Quinn felt it.

Complete and utter shock.

It hit her like a wave of ice cold water to the face, and the only thing she could think to do was blurt out one word, a word that the good Christian Quinn would have never said, but was the only word available when pink-haired Quinn found herself face to face with the one person she'd prayed not to see over the summer.

"Fuck."

"Quinn?" Rachel said, skidding to a stop so abruptly that she nearly fell over. "Quinn Fabray?"

"Hide me, hide me," she whispered frantically through clenched teeth, and Mack looked at her as if she'd just popped out of a UFO.

No, no, no, this was all wrong. She couldn't be stood here with pink hair and a cigarette while Rachel Berry was stood _there_ in a skin-tight Nike outfit looking downright fuckable, this was her worst nightmare and all she wanted to do was run.

But she couldn't, because damn if the Skanks didn't have her blocked in, and so all Quinn could do was look at her.

"Rachel."

Rachel blinked once, twice, almost as if she had expected the person in front of her to _not_ be Quinn, and now that she'd gotten confirmation it was, she didn't quite know what to do with herself. Ordinarily it would've made Quinn happy, to render Rachel Berry of all people speechless.

"This is um, quite a new look for you," Rachel said somewhat awkwardly, and Quinn tried desperately not to notice the thin sheen of sweat the covered Rachel's tan skin from her workout.

"Wanted to try something different," Quinn said, taking another puff of her cigarette, both to calm her jangled nerves and to prove a point.

"Well you certainly went after it," Rachel said, then peered around Quinn to look at the other girls clustered with her. "And these are… your friends?"

"Want me to beat her up, Fabray?" Sheila said. "Please let me beat her up."

Quinn laughed without meaning to, because Rachel had actually taken a step back. But then there was that familiar feeling in her belly, that small twinge of fear that wasn't her own, and Quinn shook her head, swallowing past the lump in her throat.

"It's fine, she's just a gi—" Her eyes landed on the necklace around Rachel's neck. Silver and gold, two loops held together by a chain.

"She's just a girl from school."

The hurt in Rachel's eyes was unmistakable, but she schooled it behind a pleasant, if stiff, smile. "Hello," she addressed the others, then turned back to Quinn.

"I tried to call you, but your number was disconnected?"

Quinn shrugged. "I had to. I was afraid Coach would come after me once Santana told her I hadn't signed up for cheer camp."

"Y-you've left the Cheerios?" Rachel's eyes were wide.

Quinn shrugged again.

"Oh. Well, if you don't mind, may I have your new number? I can put it in my iPod and then add it to my phone when I get—"

"No."

"—home."

Rachel nodded slowly, her eyes darting from Quinn to the skanks and then back again. "Oh, well, all right then, that's… that's all right." Her smile was wider then, but just as fake and strained, and something about it made Quinn's heart clench. For a moment it was as if they were freshmen again, and Rachel was trying to smile after being met in the face with a slushie.

"C'mon," Mack said suddenly. "Let's get out of here, there's too much nerd all of a sudden."

"Hey," Quinn said, turning to her. "Watch it."

Mack looked at her oddly, then shrugged. "Come if you want or not, Fabray, I'm blowing this joint."

The others moved to follow suit, with Quinn close behind, when that voice once again stopped her.

"I'm sorry you're so sad."

She turned slowly, not wanting to see the concern that always lingered in those brown eyes. "I'm not sad," Quinn said, but even she knew that her words sounded flat.

"Okay." Rachel nodded.

Quinn nodded too, relieved the conversation was done.

But it wasn't.

"Do you still have my number?"

No, of course she didn't.

Well, she'd delete it when she got home.

"Well, y-you should call me," Rachel said, in response to the subtle lift of Quinn's chin. "If you need to talk, or if you need anything. I'm available any time. Day or night."

"Finish your workout, Rachel," Quinn said, and walked off to rejoin her friends.

That night Quinn fixed herself dinner and sat on the couch with her legs curled underneath her, eating and flipping the channels on the television mindlessly. Five hundred channels and nothing on, and finally she threw the remote down and stalked up to her room, intent on going to bed at the ungodly hour of nine p.m.

She was unsettled, unfocused, because all day she'd been seeing Rachel's face. Rachel's face, concerned and tired. Rachel's eyes, staring deeply at her, as if she could see inside Quinn's skin. _Rachel's_ skin, taut and stretched with exercise, droplets of sweat clinging to her. And that smile, fake and not quite reaching her eyes.

She could deal with the images, Quinn thought. She could deal with them, if she could get the _feeling_ to go away. She wasn't even sure what it was, whether it was her own feelings or… something else's. She couldn't believe that she was actually feeling something that was Rachel; she was just overreacting, Quinn told herself. That overwhelming sadness and worry that coursed through her as she put on her pajamas and pulled the covers over her head, enveloping her in darkness, was because she herself was upset. Not Rachel.

She didn't think she could take it if she had to _feel_ Rachel Berry as well as see her.

She laid there for what felt like hours, tossing and turning, grumbling to herself. She was relieved that her mother wasn't home; Quinn didn't think she could deal with _that_ on top of everything else. After all, who would it be this time? Mark? Jack? Peter? It didn't matter, her mother was single now, and her parents weren't getting back together. Life as she knew it… wasn't.

Frustrated, Quinn finally threw off the covers and reached into the drawer next to her bed, intent on smoking one last cigarette to try to calm her nerves. Who cared if it was in the house, the smell would be gone before her mother made it back anyway.

But instead of her pack, her fingers closed around something else, something small, smooth, and cool. Quinn took out the ring and held it up to the light coming through the window from the street outside. She turned it over in her fingers, studying it as best she could in the dark, studying the way the thin ropes of metal linked together, almost like the chain around Rachel's neck…

For the first time since prom, Quinn slipped the ring on.

A new feeling came through her, starting from her finger and moving up her arm, finally settling in the depths of her chest.

Warmth.

Like a gentle hand, wiping tears from her eyes.

It was still there as she slid beneath the covers again, and stayed as at last she fell asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

"So what was the deal with that girl yesterday?" Mack asked Quinn.

Quinn took a sip of her coke and sat it down on the grass, looking over at Mack from her position sitting up against one of the trees in the park.

"What girl?"

"Oh don't 'what girl' us," Sheila said. "She an ex?"

"Or is she a current?" Mack asked with a strange smirk on her face. "Because if she isn't—"

"Not an ex, not a current, not available," Quinn rushed to say, picking up her bottle again and taking a drink so fast she choked.

Mack slapped her back and Quinn spluttered, taking a deep breath and regaining herself. "Thanks," she croaked, then settle back, closing her eyes.

"She's just a girl from school," she explained again. Maybe if she said it enough she'd be able to convince herself.

"She's that singer chick, isn't she?" Ronnie asked. "The one in all the clubs at school."

"Ha," Mack laughed, "Yeah, she'd probably try to join the preg… nancy club… sorry, Fabray."

Quinn shook her head. It used to be that something like that would hurt, and though the memory of Beth was still tinged with a hint of sadness, an emptiness in her arms that she hadn't quite been able to fill, things were… sweeter than they had been.

"It's all right. Oh hey," she said suddenly, "I um… I got new pictures."

"Yeah?" Sheila said, leaning in. "Let's see?"

"You sure?" The other girls acquiesced, and Quinn smiled, pulling out her phone and quickly thumbing through to the gallery.

Shelby and her daughter were living in New York now, and though it pained Quinn that she might never again actually get to _see_ Beth, Shelby had made up for it with over 200 pictures sent to Quinn's phone, and a card on her birthday. There was Beth asleep in her crib, Beth sitting in her little baby chair watching a video (educational, Shelby had reassured) and the latest batch of pictures as Quinn passed around her phone, with Beth tucked sleepily in her mother's arms, a bottle in her mouth.

"She's a doll, Q," Ronnie said, lightly punching her arm. "You miss her?"

"Every day," Quinn admitted. "But I get these. These are enough. Knowing she's happy and that Shelby's good to her… that's enough."

She'd be lying if Quinn said that she hadn't considered taking Beth back, a week or so after she was born. She'd filled her nights alone thinking about where she could put a bassinet or a crib, the toys she would buy. The little frilly clothes and shoes that she'd always dress Beth in. Quinn had begun to think that maybe her mother was right, maybe she could raise Beth just fine on her own.

But oddly enough, it had been Rachel who had convinced Quinn that Beth was just where she needed to be. They'd hung out a little bit that summer, and Quinn had once again marveled that Rachel, fresh off the pain of Shelby rejecting her in favor of a baby – a baby that was _Quinn's_ – still had the capacity to make _Quinn_ feel better.

"Shelby will take care of her," Rachel had said matter-of-factly as they'd sat together in Quinn's room. "She knows that you want Beth to have the best life she possibly can. And she's able to give that life to her. Please don't get mad at me, Quinn, but I do think that Shelby is in a much better situation to provide for Beth than you are at the moment."

She had gotten mad, and Rachel had left a little sad that evening. But Quinn had called her the next morning to tell Rachel Berry that once again, she had been right. And now as Quinn reflected on her life, on her mother with a different man every week, on the father that she didn't even know anymore… she glanced down at the sleeping baby on her phone, tracing one fat cheek with her finger, and the ache lessened just a little bit.

"You did the right thing, Fabray," Mack said, and Quinn nodded.

"I know."

It struck her then, that despite their propensity for shoving people's heads in toilets, the Skanks weren't as bad as they had been made out to be. True, they didn't really _talk_ all that much, but when they did… it was the first time that Quinn hadn't felt judged, hadn't felt like a failure. Where she'd felt like she could be who she was, no questions asked, and that being an outcast really didn't matter all that much.

Well, no, that wasn't the first time.

Rachel Berry didn't judge. "I don't hate you," she'd said to Quinn, on a day that seemed forever ago. Why she didn't Quinn would never know, but she just chalked it up to yet another thing she'd never understand about the little girl with the gigantic voice.

"Hello, Skanks, what is cracker lacking at the moment?"

And now that gigantic voice was really loud, really perky and really… right there, coming from behind Quinn, apparently.

She glanced over her shoulder, and stared.

Rachel Berry indeed stood behind Quinn, or at least… someone who resembled Rachel Berry. This Rachel Berry had on what could have passed for her normal clothes, with a few minor changes.

If minor changes meant a bat sweater. A torn black sweater with a white bat emblazoned on it, worn over top a plaid skirt, ripped down the side so that it was completely open and only held together with a few safety pins. Next in the "ensemble" were black ripped tights, huge holes over the knees, and a pair of Converse on her feet that Quinn realized looked exactly like the ones they'd worn during the Keep Holding On number.

That Rachel had organized for her.

But Rachel hadn't just changed her clothes; she'd accessorized them as well. Her neck looked like she'd invaded New Orleans every Mardi Gras for the last twenty, with the amount of beads she was wearing. (Quinn couldn't help but see that even the beads couldn't hide the gold and silver necklace underneath, at least not from _her_ eyes.) And in Rachel's hair was – oh dear god, were those ribbons? Yes, black and purple, making her look less like a gothic diva and more like a toddler Wednesday Addams.

Quinn's mouth opened and closed like a fish, but it was Mack who spoke first.

"Well, hello there, gorgeous," she drawled. "What brings you here?"

"Oh, I was just out for a morning walk," Rachel said, "Wondering what – or who – I might find." She cast a pointed look at Quinn. "And if it isn't Quinn Fabray."

She wanted to speak, to say something, anything, but all she could focus on was that ridiculous outfit and only something rather like a grunt came out of her mouth.

"Hmm, well, go right ahead, join us," Mack said, and Quinn threw her a furious look. Mack smirked before turning back to Rachel. "Cigarette?" she said, digging into her pack and holding one out.

The movement was instant. "Thanks," Quinn said, as she plucked it out of Mack's hand. "I was getting low." She lit it, trying to hide how badly her hands were shaking, to little avail.

"Yeah, sure you were. So what's your name?"

"Rachel. Rachel Berry, I—"

"Is that a _bat_ on your sweater?" Quinn finally managed to ask, looking at her.

Rachel appeared flustered, whether it was from Quinn's tone or finding herself suddenly way out of her element, she didn't know. "Yes," she answered eventually. "I would have worn something a little more appropriate, but, well, when I went to Hot Topic the vampire working there told me I was out past my bedtime and made me leave."

"He was right," Quinn muttered, and rolled her eyes when Rachel huffed. She got up from the grass and looked down at her companions. "I'll be right back," she said, and rounded on Rachel with all the fury of a (former) captain of a cheerleading squad.

"You," she said evenly. "Come with me. Now."

"O-okay," Rachel said, and followed dutifully behind Quinn as they walked off from the others. "May I just say, Quinn, I think you look rather fetching in your jeans and tank top. Is that an upside down cross?"

"Shut up, Berry." Quinn kept walking; there was no way she was going to let the Skanks hear any of this conversation, even though she knew Mack was probably snickering behind her.

"Although really, I don't quite understand why everyone thinks the upside down cross is satanic. Isn't it the way St. Peter was crucified because he thought he wasn't worthy to die right side up, like Jesus?"

Quinn stopped, her eyes widening. "You're Jewish, how the hell do you know that?"

"It's called reading?"

"Ugh, whatever," Quinn scowled, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Look, you need to leave."

"This is a free park, Quinn, I can stay if I wish to."

"_I_ don't wish you to!" Quinn snapped. "Like I don't know what you meant to accomplish with this ridiculous outfit—"

"I thought it looked quite nice…"

"And showing up here, but whatever it is, it's not going to work."

Rachel looked down at the ground, an expression on her face, Quinn thought, of a puppy that had been kicked. Hard.

"Okay."

"Okay." Relieved, Quinn started to walk away, but once again Rachel's voice stopped her.

"I wish you wouldn't smoke."

"What?" Quinn said, exasperated, and turned around again, running a hand through her cropped hair.

Rachel shrugged and tugged at the hem of her skirt. "You have a very lovely tremulous alto," she said softly. "I would just hate for something such as cigarettes to ruin such a valuable contribution to our glee club."

"Yeah well, I'm not going to be in the glee club anymore so you don't need to worry."

"_What?!_"

And ugh, her lower lip actually started trembling and Quinn had to turn away, because she felt the dismay well up inside her and she knew, she knew it couldn't be anyone but Rachel, upset at what she'd just heard.

Quinn shook her head and walked back towards the Skanks.

"Go home, Rachel."

"Hey, Quinn," Mack started as she sat back down, but Quinn shook her head.

"Don't. Just don't."

That night, she played with the ring again, slipping it on her finger and back off. She wondered if Rachel could feel it, wondered if Rachel was able to sense the conflict that was going on within her. She hoped not. She'd built those walls carefully over the years for a reason.

First to save herself from the kids who always loved to make fun of the fat girl, then to save herself from a father's indifference. And finally, to save herself from a girl who just couldn't seem to quit.

Quinn fell asleep wearing the ring.

The next day she insisted the Skanks avoid the park. They all gave her knowing looks, which infuriated her, but she didn't care. She knew they all realized she had a history with Rachel; you'd have to be both deaf and blind to have missed their interactions, or the telling of it, over the years. But if there was one thing Quinn wasn't about to do, it was have a heart to heart with the Skanks about this. Talking to them about Beth was one thing, talking to them about Rachel Berry was an entirely different one.

But fuck her life if ten minutes after they'd finally made it to their space under the bleachers at McKinley, Quinn heard the crunching of gravel underfoot and she closed her eyes.

"Hello again, Skanks!"

"Whoa," she heard Ronnie say, and Quinn opened her eyes.

Instantly her mouth went dry.

Standing in front of them was Rachel, _again_. Only this time, she was wearing jeans. Jeans that hugged her curves and showcased those legs and those hips and Quinn actually felt herself shiver.

That's when she saw it.

Rachel, staring at her, a half smirk on her face and a glint in her eyes.

And Quinn knew that _Rachel_ knew.

She was totally fucked.

"How did you even find us?" she asked.

"Oh, I asked around," Rachel replied smoothly. "A group of young women who looked like they were up to no good? You weren't difficult to track."

"Do you realize how much of a stalker that makes you?" Quinn pointed out.

"Nice uh, tank top, gorgeous," Mack said, and Quinn felt like punching her. "It really showcases your assets."

It wouldn't have been so bad if Mack hadn't been right. The black tank top slid effortlessly over Rachel's breasts and dear God why hadn't she ever really noticed just how _hot_ Rachel was? Probably because she'd been a damn prude afraid of burning in eternal hellfire, Quinn thought to herself.

Now she wasn't even sure she believed in _God_ anymore.

"Why thank you!" Rachel said, turning around as she beamed with pride, and Quinn saw red.

"What. The hell. Is _that_."

"What's what?" Rachel said innocently, and Quinn swiped her hand over her mouth, throwing her lit cigarette down and stomping on it.

"That," she said, grasping Rachel's arm and turning her again, poking at her lower back, at the two words tattooed on her skin in harsh, wide black.

FUCK BROADWAY.

"Holy shit," Ronnie breathed, but she was looking at Quinn, not at Rachel.

Great, now her emotions were written all over her _face_, she thought. This kept getting better and better.

"Oh that?" Rachel said, and damn if her grin wasn't impish this time, almost devilish. It might have been cute, or a little arousing, if Quinn wasn't so angry.

"That is my new tattoo, Quinn. What do you think of it?"

"I don't know what Quinn thinks of it, but I think it's really hot."

She was going to kill her, Quinn thought. She was going to murder Mack and then she wouldn't even have to worry about the bond, because you can't exactly dominate someone _in jail_. Huh, maybe it'd be worth it.

Because Mack was grinning at her as she asked Rachel, "Hey, gorgeous, you want to go out sometime?"

"Rachel doesn't go out."

"She doesn't?"

"I don't?"

"No," Quinn bit out, "She doesn't. And I would've said that she doesn't get ridiculously idiotic tattoos but apparently I was wrong about that."

"Apparently you were," Rachel said primly, then regarded the other girls. "So, what are we going to do today? Egg some houses? Beat someone up? I could kick them in the shins if you need me to."

"What you can do is leave," Quinn snapped.

"That's rude, Fabray," Sheila said, and Quinn glanced at her.

"I don't care. Do any of you really want her here or do you just think it's funny?" They were silent, and Quinn nodded. "See what I mean?" she said to Rachel, ignoring the genuine hurt on the girl's face.

"Whatever you think you're doing, Rachel, it's the same as always: you're just a joke. When you leave, we're all going to turn around and laugh at you, just like everyone always does. So just go."

She was practically hugging herself now, looking down at the ground again, before she raised her eyes to Quinn.

"You won't laugh at me," she stated, and for a second Quinn hated her, because Rachel was right.

She wouldn't laugh at her. Not anymore.

"Please go home, Rach," Quinn said, surprised at how tenderly the words came out. "Go home to your boyfriend."

And then Rachel looked up at her, and her eyes were clear. "There isn't one."

"What?" Quinn said dumbly, not sure she'd heard correctly.

"There isn't a boyfriend."

"I—oh."

They were over, Quinn thought. Rachel Berry and that tree … they were finally over. She couldn't believe it.

Maybe now was her chance. She could go home, re-dye her hair blonde. Put on a dress and a cardigan, make him a grilled cheese sandwich and show up at his house.

Let him touch her boobs, and Finn Hudson would be her boyfriend again in five minutes.

She could do it… but at the same time, Quinn Fabray knew there was no way she would.

Because she'd stared at Rachel's chest and rear end more than once in the last week, and even if it wasn't _Rachel_ that she wanted, Quinn knew it wasn't Finn, either.

"Are you really not coming back to glee?" Rachel asked, and Quinn noticed that the rest of the Skanks had edged away from them, probably uncomfortable with the intimacy of the conversation.

"I'm really not."

"Why? We're doing the Go-Gos…"

"I prefer the Bangles," Sheila interjected anyway, and Quinn grinned a little.

"Well, we could always add it to our repertoire if you considered joining," Rachel said slowly.

"Why do you even care?" Quinn said. "I thought you wanted to 'Fuck Broadway.'" She made the air quotes, and rolled her eyes at herself.

"Oh." Rachel looked embarrassed and shrugged. "It's not real."

"It isn't?" The relief in her voice was evident.

"No. I told Daddy it was for a performance piece at the community center. He was rather excited."

"Of course he was," Quinn said. It was all so ridiculous and absurd, but _of course_ Rachel Berry had convinced her father to put a fake tattoo on her, even if he didn't know it was for the sole purpose of her trying to fit in with the Skanks. Just so she could talk to her.

Something a little like gratitude swelled up inside Quinn, and this, this she knew, was all her, not Rachel. But she pushed it down, as quickly as it had risen.

"If you won't leave, I will," she said, and started off in the direction of home.

"You really won't consider staying in glee?" Rachel's voice called out after her, never giving up, even to the bitter end.

Quinn kept walking.

That night, she kept replaying Rachel's words, over and over in her head.

There isn't a boyfriend.

Had Finn broken up with her? Or had Rachel finally decided… what? Quinn wasn't sure, and she told herself it didn't matter.

But she fell asleep turning the ring around and around on her finger, and it was the first thing her eyes fell upon when she woke up the next morning.

And she realized, it did matter. It mattered a lot.

She didn't think that Rachel would try to find them again, but just in case, Quinn ferried them all to an empty parking lot clear across town, satisfied that there was no way Rachel would be able to locate them there.

Rachel proved her wrong at half past twelve.

"Quinn?"

"Oh my god, Rachel, you have got to stop this stalking thing, it's getting really creep—"

Quinn stopped short and stared, which seemed to have become a habit in the last few days. Rachel was no longer wearing the strange clothes that had been her wardrobe that week, but Quinn figured it wasn't necessary. The blue streaks in Rachel's hair were dramatic enough.

Something snapped inside of Quinn. "That is _it_!" she growled, crossing the parking lot and seizing Rachel's upper arm, beginning to – gently – drag her away from the Skanks.

"Go get her, Fabray!" she heard Mack hoot, but she chose to ignore it. It had probably been Mack's plan all along, get her so riled up over Rachel by flirting with her that Quinn would have to act.

"Q-Quinn?"

"Is it wash out or permanent?"

"What?"

"Is it," Quinn took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. "Wash out or permanent?"

"It – it washes out."

"Good. You're going home and you're going to wash it out."

"No I'm not."

Quinn stopped and turned to Rachel. She watched as Rachel took her in, from the still bright pink hair tied with a bandana, to the denim vest, to the nose ring. She felt awkward under Rachel's gaze, but she shook it off.

"Why did you and Finn break up?" she asked suddenly, and Rachel drew back a little in shock. But then she squared herself, and met Quinn's gaze.

"I told him that it was unfair to him for me to continue our relationship when I had bonded to someone else, and when I… when I…"

"When you what?"

"When I refused to give up on seeing where that bond might take me and the other person."

"So you didn't—"

"No," Rachel said. "I didn't tell him who it was. I thought that was something he didn't need to know."

She didn't know why, but she was grateful for it.

"Thank you. Rachel…"

"Yes, Quinn?"

She took a deep breath, and the scent of Rachel's perfume assaulted Quinn in waves. She sighed, and gave up.

"If I hang out with you… will you stop this?"

"Stop what?" Rachel asked suspiciously, but there was no mistaking the way her eyes lit up.

"Will you stop… this." Quinn gestured. "The hair, the fake tattoos, the stalking, everything. If I hang out with you, will you _please_ go back to being, I don't know, _Rachel_? Please."

There was a pause, then the corner of Rachel's mouth turned up into a grin. "I never thought I'd ever hear you ask me that."

Quinn shook her head. "It's just… this isn't you," she said.

"Is it you?" Rachel asked pointedly.

"What if it is?" Quinn retorted. "Going to wish you weren't bonded to me?"

"No," Rachel said simply, without hesitation, and Quinn had to resist her jaw dropping. "If this is what you really want, well then, we'll work with that."

_We'll work with that._

She couldn't help the little smile that cross over her lips, even though she tried to school it behind her usual false sense of bravado.

"You going home to wash that out?" she asked Rachel, and the younger girl nodded.

"I don't think blue is my color anyway. Though I must say, pink looks very good on you."

"Yeah?" Quinn said, and this time she didn't try to hide the smile.

Rachel smiled back. "Yeah." She regarded Quinn a little shyly. "Tomorrow at my house? I—I mean if you still know the way."

"I know the way," Quinn reassured her. "And yeah, tomorrow." It was against her better judgment, but damn if she couldn't resist the way Rachel was looking at her.

And then Rachel hugged her, fiercely and impulsively, tucking her head against Quinn's neck. Quinn squeezed her lightly before letting go.

Later that night, she lay awake in her bed and just felt… strange. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she felt restless. Suddenly Quinn reached over and grabbed her phone, bringing up a text message screen.

_Go to sleep_, she texted Rachel, hastily adding _It's Quinn_ at the end.

Moments later, the reply came. _How did you know I'm still awake?_

_I… don't know_, she answered. _I just did, somehow_.

_Oh. You sleep too._

She smiled softly and reached into her bedside table, pulling open the drawer and taking out the ring. She barely glanced at it before slipping it onto her finger.

_I will. See you tomorrow, Rach._

She had no idea what would await her at Rachel's house, and if she was being honest with herself she was more than a little scared. But anything was better than seeing Rachel constantly try to change herself just to have even a little bit of Quinn's attention. It didn't escape Quinn's realization that maybe that's what she was doing too, but she pushed that out of her head. Right now her concern was Rachel.

_See you tomorrow. Good night, Quinn._

She stared at the phone, then texted back, a simple sentence that wasn't a good night.

_Now you have my phone number … use it whenever you want._

Quinn put away her phone and turned onto her side, staring out into the darkness of her bedroom. After a few moments, she felt a heaviness that was not herself slide ever so slightly into her mind, and she knew Rachel was asleep.

As nervous and slightly excited as she was for what the next day might bring, it didn't take Quinn long to follow her.


	5. Chapter 5

Anyone who met Quinn Fabray – or, well, Quinn Fabray as she had been before the summer of her seventeenth year – would have thought "Here is a girl who never wants to get dirty."

But you don't make it to the top of a cheerleading pyramid without first climbing a few trees.

She surveyed the tree to the side of the house with an expression on her face resembling grim determination, lightly punching its trunk. "Sturdy," she muttered to herself, really more to play off the fact that she had no idea what the tree was or whether it would hold her weight.

But Quinn Fabray adjusted her backpack and pushed herself into the wood anyway, hoisting herself up.

When she was seven years old and her mother had called "Lucy!" out the front door of their house as the sunlight dimmed, she had spent the majority of her summer outside, climbing trees and playing in the dirt, golden curls smudged from mud pies and more than a few splinters skinning her knees. But seven only lasted a year and her nose wasn't right, fashion magazines she hadn't bought found their way into her bedroom and the treehouse in her backyard was torn down the week Lucy became Quinn.

She'd never forgotten, though, how bark felt against her hands, that momentary fear and thrill of groping for a foothold, of thin limbs bending as you climbed. The anticipation of the prize at the top.

Quinn glanced to her right. The Berry house had light green siding, and now it was inches from her face. She grinned a little, and reached for the next branch.

Jeans weren't the best for climbing trees, which is why Quinn was glad she'd changed into a pair of shorts before she'd started off for Rachel's. She tried not to think about the fact that she'd changed, just to go to Berry's house, nor did she want to think about the fact that she'd spent an hour just trying to figure out what to wear.

Quinn looked up, once again finding her foothold. Her thighs were beginning to hurt with the strain, but luckily Rachel's window was only a few feet away.

… she really hoped Rachel was in her room, because if she wasn't things would no doubt get very awkward.

She also hoped Rachel's neighbors weren't home. These were things Quinn knew she probably should've thought of before she started climbing the tree to Rachel's bedroom, but, well, you only live once.

"Did I seriously just use 'yolo' to explain this?" Quinn said aloud, then snorted. "Now I know I've gone crazy."

The sun was just beginning to slip down the horizon; there was probably only thirty minutes of good sunlight left. Quinn had spent most of her day hanging out with the Skanks, as usual, though really she thought it was less "hanging out," and more "wondering if Rachel would show up with a copy of _The Satanic Verses_ and wearing a My Chemical Romance shirt."

True to her word she hadn't, though Quinn had wondered if it had been because Rachel hadn't wanted to, or because Quinn had told her not to.

It hadn't taken the Skanks long to figure it out. Mack had been the first to say it out loud, with just a few words that had Quinn choking on the smoke of her cigarette.

"So when did you two bond?"

"We didn't!" Quinn said hotly, once she'd regained her power of speech, but the looks on Mack's and the others' faces told her they didn't believe it.

She sighed. "Prom night."

"So why aren't you with her?"

"It's… complicated."

"That shit ain't cute, no matter what Facebook says," Sheila pointed out, and Quinn grinned.

"We have a history. It isn't the nicest… and you can't tell anybody!" She panicked for a moment, thinking that her bonding to Rachel Berry was going to be front-page news within the next thirty seconds.

"Relax, Fabray," Mack said. "None of us will say anything, right? _Right_?" The others nodded, and Mack bumped fists with Quinn.

"I'm kind of disappointed she's taken though."

"She isn't taken."

"To her she is," and Quinn had to agree with Mack on that.

She'd told them that she was going to see Rachel after she'd left, that it was the only way she could guarantee that Rachel wouldn't keep showing up wherever they were. It wasn't that she really thought Rachel would, because even Rachel Berry had to know when she was out of her element. But Quinn had the sneaking suspicion – though she wouldn't voice it, even when Mack noted that Quinn wasn't wearing her ring – that she wanted to keep Rachel away from the Skanks not to protect her from them, but because she wanted Rachel… well, she wanted Rachel to herself.

But she'd never tell Rachel that. Or the Skanks.

They hadn't talked much about it after the first few questions; it was weird that Quinn felt more comfortable talking to them about her baby than her love life. But it wasn't her love life, anyway, it was just Rachel.

Just Rachel.

The window was just within her reach; Quinn could peek in now and she smiled in spite of herself, seeing Rachel sat at her desk, working on… something. A song, maybe, she thought. The five hundredth revision of her life plan. Had there been 499 other versions? Quinn wondered as she adjusted her backpack and ignored her aching legs to stretch out her hand towards the window.

Was she revising it now that Finn was no longer in the picture? It should make Quinn happy, but instead, it just filled her with a sadness she couldn't explain. She didn't think it was her own… but she pushed that aside and lightly rapped on Rachel's windowpane.

She tried not to think about the cops that would be called or the lamp that might be beaten onto her head, because honestly, who climbs a tree to a girl's window at just after dusk in the summer?

And it was just as well that she didn't think, because just as Rachel turned around and gaped at the sight of a pink haired girl sitting in a tree outside her bedroom, Quinn Fabray's foot slipped.

"Fuck!" she gasped, but let out a sigh of relief when the branch held, leaving her dangling several feet in the air above Rachel Berry's yard.

She heard the window slide open.

"Quinn?"

"Oh, heeey, Rachel," she said, trying to sound casual. "How's it going?"

"Are you all right?"

"Yep, yep, I'm fine, just… you know."

She looked up and saw Rachel leaning against the sill to her window, looking out at her with concerned amusement. She was dressed simply, in just a teeshirt and sweatpants, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail with scattered tendrils falling into her eyes. They were twinkling, and Quinn swallowed hard.

"Is there any particular reason why you couldn't use the front door like a normal person, Quinn?"

She huffed. "Well, that wouldn't be… rebellious enough now would it?"

"Oh. How very… hipster of you."

Quinn's mouth dropped open. "I am not a hipster!"

"No, no, of course not," and then Rachel was laughing, and Quinn rolled her eyes. "Doors are far too mainstream for _you_, Quinn Fabray. You probably listen to The Black Keys or The Decemberists or White Rabbits, don't you?"

Quinn paused her mad rush to regain her footing long enough to stare at Rachel. "How do you even know who those are?" she asked, never minding that _she_ had no clue who they were.

Rachel sniffed. "I'm Rachel Berry."

"Ugh, fine," Quinn said, giving up to let herself dangle again. "But I'm not a hipster, I'm… I'm a punk!"

"You and approximately two hundred of our other classmates," Rachel said with a shake of her head. "Anyway, that is not the point, Quinn. Do you not realize how unsafe it is to climb a tree instead of coming in through the—"

"Oh my god, I'm going to die," Quinn groaned, the muscles of her arms burning and panic beginning to set in. "Rachel, can you please just lecture me when my feet are actually inside your room?"

Her face turning pink, Rachel leaned out through her window and grasped Quinn's right wrist. "Put your foot against the house," she instructed, and pulled as Quinn did so.

Quinn collapsed onto the floor and Rachel shut her window, turning to lean against it.

"Are you all right?" her voice was soft and worried, with no trace of her earlier humor.

"Yeah, yeah," Quinn answered, licking her lips and trying to catch her breath. She glanced up at Rachel. "Thanks for not letting me plummet to my death."

"Far too many celebrities have a mysterious death in their pasts," Rachel said with a shrug. "I'd quite like to be an exception to that rule."

"I certainly don't want to be a sad chapter in your biography," Quinn joked.

"I thought you weren't coming," Rachel said instead of smiling, and sat down on the floor, a few inches away from Quinn.

Quinn sat up, taking off her backpack and leaning it against the foot of Rachel's bed. She crossed her legs Indian style and regarded the smaller girl in front of her.

She'd entertained not coming, for about ten minutes. She didn't have to, she'd reasoned with herself, there wasn't anything tying her to Rachel.

But the necklace that glittered at Rachel's collarbone told Quinn that was a lie, and she knew it.

"I hung out with the Skanks for a little while," Quinn said. "Went home and said hi to mom."

That was a lie, too.

_Gone out with Joey, don't wait up!_

"Oh," Rachel said, brightening. "How is your mother?"

"She's fine. Still dating."

"No one serious yet?"

"No, not yet."

"And have you heard from your—"

"No."

"Ah."

Rachel was one of the few who could ask about Russell Fabray and not be answered with a punch to the face. Mostly because she didn't pry, didn't press; it was just a simple inquiry and then she moved on.

Quinn hadn't heard from her father in nearly a year, not since the night that he'd tossed her out on her own. A part of her had absurdly wanted to send him a picture of Beth – she still had his phone number, after all. At least, she thought he might have the same number. She wondered what he'd think of the baby, the sweet brown-eyed little girl that was his flesh and blood. She wondered if he'd be proud of her for doing what she thought was right for her daughter. She wondered if he even thought of Quinn, or if he'd moved on with his life and forgotten her.

She'd been a daddy's girl. Even now she could remember what his cologne smelled like when he'd come home after a long day of work and sweep her into his arms for a hug.

"So uh, what were you working on?" Quinn asked.

"Working on?"

"At your desk. I saw you when I looked in your win- stop looking at me, yes I know how that sounds!"

"Well, as long as you're aware of your stalker tendencies, that's the first step," Rachel said and shook her head, moving to sit on her bed.

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you? By the way, I'm glad the blue is gone."

"Will there be a point when you let me live that down?"

"Ask me again when we're eighty."

Rachel's face was pink again, and she looked down at her feet. "I'll be seventy-nine, actually, though I'm glad you're thinking that far ahead."

Quinn didn't quite know what to say to that, but luckily Rachel saved her by continuing to talk.

"I was working on a set list for this year's sectionals." Quinn knew what Rachel was going to say before she even had a chance to ask it; she held up her hand.

"No. I'm not going back."

"But why, I don't understand…"

"I just… I need to be out of it," Quinn insisted. "Please don't ask me again."

Rachel didn't look like she was ready at all to agree to that, but she nodded slowly, disapproval on her face. "All right."

"Okay." Quinn's stomach rumbled and she grimaced, grinning sheepishly at Rachel.

"I've already had dinner," Rachel said sympathetically, "But I can run downstairs and make you something?"

"No, that's all right," Quinn hastened to say, reaching into her backpack and pulling out a sandwich. "I came prepared."

She ate quickly in silence, pausing long enough to ask, "So… what do you want to do?"

They couldn't just sit there awkwardly, but it wasn't like it was last summer, when they sat around talking and giggling about mostly everything. Quinn had realized she liked that Rachel, the relaxed and easy teenager who wasn't always about glee and musicals. She was softer at home, less abrasive, with a light to her eyes that Quinn wasn't sure she'd ever seen at school.

She wasn't sure what that light meant, even though now she thought she could guess.

"Watch a movie?" Rachel suggested.

Quinn put away the sandwich wrapper and wiped her mouth, then tugged at a loose strand of pink hair. She pulled off the crochet hat and tossed it into her bag. "No musicals."

Rachel had made them watch one every day for a week, when they'd first started hanging out.

"No horror movies," Rachel countered, and Quinn rolled her eyes.

"Comedy?"

"No."

"Romance?"

Rachel eyed her.

"… historical?"

Rachel sighed. "There's just not anything I'm absolutely craving to see," she said. "I suppose I can find something in my movie collection."

"Or you could give me your laptop and I'll find something to download that we both want to watch."

Rachel tilted her head, confused. "Download?"

"Yeah," Quinn said, just as confused. "You know, download."

"Wait… you mean illegally?"

"Oh come on, Rachel," Quinn scoffed. "You know you've downloaded a movie. _Or an album_." She nodded meaningfully, a wicked smile on her face.

"I most certainly have not!" Rachel retorted, looking shocked and more than a little infuriated. "That's thievery, Quinn Fabray, that's.. that's… denying artists and actors their hard-earned dues that they worked weeks or months or even years for!"

"Okay, okay," Quinn held up her hands in surrender. "We can watch something from your extensive movie collection."

"Hmph," Rachel said, moving to glance through the DVDs she had on the shelves against her wall. She glanced back at Quinn, her lips pursed.

"You're probably one of those people who would sneak a camera into musical performances."

"Maybe if it was one of yours."

"What?"

"What?"

"Rachel, have you – oh." Quinn tensed as she was soon face to face with Hiram Berry, who was stopped in the middle of the room, having entered with just a mere knock.

"Hello, Quinn," he said pleasantly, staring down at her.

"HI… Mr. Berry," she said slowly, and was sure that her cheeks now matched her hair.

"It's good to see you again, we've missed you since last summer."

"Yeah?" she couldn't help but say. She could admit it to herself now: she'd enjoyed hanging out with Rachel last summer. Rachel was less obnoxious, her dads were fun and clearly in love, and the food they'd cook together, laughing and talking in the kitchen, was amazing. The Berry home was obviously full of love and solid family.

Quinn had missed it.

"Yes. Oh, I like your hair!"

She smiled. "Thanks, Mr. Berry."

"I didn't hear the doorbell, though?"

The smile faded and she pretended to pick at a thread in the carpet. "I came in through the window."

"Oh, well, that would explain it. How delightfully hipster."

"I am not a hipster!" she exclaimed, and cast a furious glance at Hiram Berry's giggling daughter.

"Right, right, of course. Will you be staying the night?"

"No," Quinn said.

"Yes," Rachel said.

Hiram looked at both girls in turn, his eyes coming to rest on the necklace at his daughter's neck before they landed again at Quinn.

"Well it's good to see you again, Quinn. Rachel, have you seen my wallet?"

"You probably left it in the car again, Daddy."

"Yes," Hiram said, pointing his index finger at her. "Yes, I probably did." He paused, then smiled once more at Quinn. "You girls have a wonderful night. There are snacks and drinks in the fridge, Quinn, help yourself."

"Honey!" Quinn heard him call as he walked out of the room and shut the door. "Call and cancel the landscapers, I think we should leave Rachel's tree where it is!"

"But you hate that tree," Leroy yelled from somewhere else within the house.

"Just trust me!"

"Daddies," Rachel sighed, and smiled herself. She plucked a DVD out from the shelf and showed it to Quinn.

"That'll work," Quinn agreed, and settled against the side of Rachel's bed as the smaller girl put the disc in the player and turned on the television before moving to sit next to Quinn.

They sat and watched the movie mostly in silence, with only Quinn commenting that she thought the movie had been Oscar bait, rather than a real box office contender, and Rachel had hummed her agreement. Quinn knew that there was so much more that Rachel probably wanted to ask, but she wasn't prepared to answer, and so she was glad that Rachel waited until the credits were rolling and she'd changed into her pajamas before asking Quinn what was on her mind.

"Why the Skanks? Why did you dye your hair, what's going on?"

She was cute, Quinn thought to herself, even as she tried to formulate an answer that would be satisfactory to Rachel, and knowing that there probably wouldn't be one. She'd heard Finn more than once describe Rachel as "his little girl," and remembering it just made a sick feeling well up in the pit of Quinn's stomach.

Rachel Berry wasn't a little girl, even in pink pajamas with her hair in braids. It made her irrationally angry, but she pushed it aside. She'd have been happy if Finn had called _her_ his little girl, once upon a time.

"I just wanted a change."

"It's a rather drastic change."

"Do you like it?"

She shrugged. "I don't know yet." Quinn paused. "Do you?"

"I don't like that you've left us."

"Why?" Quinn asked. "Why does me being in glee club matter so much to you?"

The quiet seemed to stretch on forever before them, and Quinn absurdly began to think that Rachel didn't have an answer. She was sure none of them did; none of them really cared why she was in glee and most of them would be happy that there would be one less competitor for a solo. Not that she'd ever really been a competitor in the first place.

"Because we're family." Rachel's voice sounded like a shot breaking into the silence and Quinn jumped a little.

She glanced over and saw that Rachel's face was gentle, troubled. "This is our year to get it right," she said, and Quinn smiled faintly, recalling the words of the song.

"But it can't be right, without you."

How much had changed, Quinn thought, from when she was sixteen years old and had joined the glee club to keep manhands away from her boyfriend. Now the same girl she'd tormented was telling her that glee wasn't the same without her. It was enough to make tears rush to her eyes.

Almost.

Rachel got up and wordlessly selected another movie, a cartoon this time. Quinn watched the characters realize that family was all that mattered and that everything they needed to be happy was already inside of them, and said nothing.

"I like the hair," Rachel said, halfway through the third movie. This one was a crime drama, a corrupt cop and his rookie do-gooder partner.

Quinn glanced at her.

"I like the hair a lot."

Quinn smiled.

The movie played on and the night outside was inky black with stars; Rachel quietly made her way downstairs and came back up minutes later with plates of fruit and chips and cans of soda. They still didn't talk, preferring just to sit in silence. More than once Quinn tried to come up with something to say, but each time she fell short and would turn back to the movie.

She wanted to go back to the way they had been last summer, before all the awkwardness. Before prom. Back when she and Rachel were friends but only kind-of, two girls trying to put aside a past that had wounded them both. Rachel had been hesitant but forgiving; Quinn had been looking for absolution while trying to show Rachel her future, and neither of them were sure how to navigate the new territory that they'd found themselves in. It had been hard and they'd clashed more than once, yet somehow they'd begun to make it work. But as always, Finn Hudson happened.

And then prom.

And now… now there was so much to ask and to want to know and Quinn was afraid of the questions Rachel had and the answers she might find in Rachel's eyes. It was better to sit next to Rachel on the floor of a bedroom done in far too much pink and with Broadway posters littering the walls, and eat chips and drink soda and not question things like bond and fate and where do we go from here?

Two hours later, Quinn awoke into the darkness with a stiff back and she freaked out momentarily, until she heard a soft murmur and she realized she was in Rachel's room. Once her eyes had adjusted, she could just barely make out a dark shape a few feet from her. Somehow a blanket had been draped over her and her head rested on a soft pillow. Her back hurt like hell but she was warm, and Rachel wasn't on the bed, but close to her.

"Rach?" she said, and swallowed thickly past the dryness in her throat.

"Mm," Rachel mumbled.

"Are we on the floor?"

It wasn't the first time she'd spent the night at Rachel's, but she'd usually always slept in the guest room, except for that one night when they'd fallen asleep watching Titanic and she'd woken up curled against one side of Rachel's bed. That had been a little awkward the next morning.

"Mmhmm." Rachel snored just a little, barely enough to be heard, and Quinn bit her hand to keep from giggling out loud.

"Don't you want to be in your bed?"

"Too many questions," Rachel grumbled, and Quinn heard rustling that sounded like Rachel getting up, but apparently she'd merely turned over on her side, and her voice was clearer as she faced Quinn. "Go back to sleep, Quinn, s'late."

Quinn hesitated, thinking that she ought to go back home. But it was late and the sky was dark; it might be Lima, Ohio but even Quinn didn't want to be out driving at this hour. Plus… it wasn't like there would be much to come home to. Either her mother would be out or she would be in, doing whatever with whoever. Quinn wrinkled her nose.

Here… here Rachel was quiet and asleep and Quinn could feel it, strong and even. _Peace_. Rachel was… maybe not necessarily happy, but she was peaceful. She was peaceful and Rachel's dad had been happy to see Quinn.

"Okay," she said softly.

Quinn turned on her side and closed her eyes to go back to sleep. After a few moments, she sat up and fumbled for her bag in the darkness, trying to be as quiet as possible as she searched through its pockets.

Her fingertips brushed coolness, and she pulled out the ring. It glittered in the moonlight along with the necklace that Quinn could just barely see.

She slipped it onto her finger.

She'd take it off in the morning, before Rachel woke up.


	6. Chapter 6

"Honestly, Quinn, _again_?"

She hoisted herself over the windowsill and landed deftly with both feet on Rachel's floor, brushing off her jeans and dropping her book bag with a thump.

"It's the principle of the thing. And besides, _someone_ had her window open."

A dimple creased the blush in her left cheek as Rachel regarded Quinn, one finger twisting in her hair. The blue was finally gone, and there were only dark curls entwining against tan skin.

"You're here early today," she pointed out, and Quinn deflected it with a shrug.

"Didn't have much to do," she said. "So I thought I'd just see what you were doing."

This was something that Quinn Fabray had perfected early on in her life. Some would have called the truth mixed in with a lie a defense mechanism, a way to reveal part of herself while also keeping herself guarded.

Quinn would've rolled her eyes and lit a cigarette.

If she still smoked.

Which she'd given up in the last two weeks.

For absolutely no reason at all.

Even if Rachel had casually commented that she didn't like the smell of stale smoke on clothes.

Or that Quinn's voice was lovely, was she sure she wasn't coming back to glee ("Yes.") and was she doing what she needed to take care of her instrument?

("Yes." _Not really._)

But the simple fact was, she'd sat with Mack under the bridge for two hours that day, and all she could think about, even as the two talked, was the petite girl who stood before Quinn wearing bright pink pajamas and for some reason, though she could walk out on a stage and own it in two seconds now seemed nervous as hell to have an audience of only one.

"You've got it bad," Mack had said, giving Quinn's shoulder a nudge.

Quinn hadn't answered.

But every day for the past two weeks she left the Skanks a little earlier. First 15 minutes. Then thirty. Sixty. And now it was only six in the afternoon and Rachel Berry was already in pajamas, staring at her expectantly with her finger in her hair and her teeth worrying her bottom lip, and Quinn had to admit that Mack was right.

She had it bad.

She carried the ring with her wherever she went, now. It stayed in her bag until she went to bed, and she felt like an idiot child who still had a security blanket that the only way she could sleep was when she finally took the ring out and slipped it onto her finger. It was as if, when she put the ring on, that a particular presence slipped into her mind and took hold. Sometimes the presence was calm and peaceful, other times it made Quinn agitated, worried.

And sometimes, late at night, if Quinn had laid in bed for hours staring at the ceiling and thinking about a gold and silver necklace against smooth skin… sometimes it hurt.

When that happened, when it hurt and it felt as if her chest was heavy and burning, not quite in her stomach and not really in her lungs but more… nestled maybe, perhaps, a little over her _heart_, she'd breathe. Quinn would breathe deep and long, and close her eyes. She'd flex her fingers and concentrate on her ring, twisting it around her finger, and she'd almost… Well, she wouldn't quite pray.

She'd given up on God, for the most part.

But she'd whisper, aloud. Into the darkness.

_It's okay. It's all right. You're all right. It's okay._

And slowly, bit by bit, second by second, the hurt would go away. As she told herself – and only herself, she'd insist – that everything was going to be all right, the presence that had tiptoed into her mind would… not ease away, but ease off, ease up.

The hurt would stop.

Quinn would sleep, words of comfort trailing off from her lips as she gave herself up to dreams.

In Rachel Berry's room, as she tried not to think about the fact that she'd climbed into the girl's room nearly every night like a stalker, Quinn was slowly beginning to realize that she hadn't been talking to herself at all, not really.

The hurt was hers, and yet not.

A lie, but the truth.

Somehow, the two had become connected, the night she'd slapped Rachel Berry. Somehow, the night she'd slapped Rachel Berry, something more than the bond of a ring and a necklace had appeared.

And Quinn could feel it.

She could feel _her_.

"Board games?" she asked Rachel, seeing the stack that rested on the center of the girl's bed. She raised an eyebrow, thinking that there was nothing more she'd hate to do on a summer evening than sit on the floor and play board games.

Quinn sat on the end of Rachel's bed, drawing up her legs so that she was Indian-style, and began rifling through the boxes.

"I looked for Hi-Ho-Cheerio, but I haven't played that since I was four," Rachel said, taking her place on the other side of Quinn.

"I thought that game was Hi-Ho-_Cherry—" _She stopped, and found herself grinning at the impish look on Rachel's face.

"Very funny, Berry." Quinn selected the Game of Life, holding it up, and Rachel nodded.

"I thought so," she said as Quinn began to unpack the pieces. She picked out two pink pegs, settling them into a car piece, and looked at Quinn.

Her fingers hesitated over the pile of plastic, before she selected one blue and one pink, positioning her own game piece at the start.

"Spin the wheel," Quinn said, ignoring the long, drawn-out, very dramatic, very Rachel Berry-sigh.

They played mostly in silence for a while, with Quinn only occasionally grumbling every time a new member was added to her little family, and her pile of money kept dwindling. And each time, Rachel would giggle, sticking her tongue out in triumph at Quinn.

And Quinn would look at her car with the blue and pink, and then at Rachel's with the two pink pegs in the front and another pink and blue in the back…

And she couldn't help but grin in return.

"School starts again soon," Rachel said carefully, once she and Quinn had finished up the game – Quinn losing miserably – and now sat on the floor enjoying leftovers of the pasta primavera Rachel's dad Leroy had fixed the night before.

Quinn nodded to herself, not answering her.

It was already August. School would be starting at the end of the month, and they would be going back to… back to what? Quinn knew that was what Rachel was asking her, knew the answer that Rachel would be hoping for.

"Yeah, it does." She finished her plate of pasta and rested it off to the side, staring down at her lap.

She could feel the faintest hint of a ring on her right hand.

Rachel wordlessly got up and took their empty plates, leaving her bedroom without as much as a look back at Quinn.

For the moment, Quinn hated herself.

Again.

It had become a habit, ever since she was 15 years old, when it came to Rachel Berry.

But there was nothing she could say. Nothing she could do that would be what Rachel wanted. She'd said that to Mack, hours earlier, as they'd sat under the bridge and Quinn tried not to crave the smoke that was exhaling from Mack's lips with every drag.

"But I don't get it," she had said.

Quinn leaned against one of the cement bolsters and closed her eyes. "I don't know what there is to get."

"But you can like… be with her," Mack said. "She likes you, and I'm sorry, Fabray but as much as you try to hide it you're as hung up on that girl as anyone I've ever seen."

Quinn scoffed, but she knew she couldn't deny it. Even though they didn't talk much as a group, out of all the Skanks Quinn preferred Mack, and would probably say that the young woman was the closest thing she'd had as a best friend since she'd stopped hanging out with Brittany and Santana. Mack was tough and brash and just as quick to shove someone's head in a toilet as she was to sit and have a heart to heart with a pink-haired rebel who less than a year ago no doubt thought she was better than all of them.

And Quinn was grateful for it.

"That doesn't mean I can be with her."

"What are you so afraid of?"

"It's a girl."

What more could she say? Quinn wondered. Her relationship with her mother was tenuous at best, the relationship with her father… non-existent. But beneath the pink hair, the tank tops and the rosary, the cigarette smoke and the pierced nose…

Quinn Fabray wished her father would come home.

She wished her father would come home, that her mother would stop staying out at all hours every night, and that they could sit and have dinner together again. That they could laugh and talk and she could show them pictures of Beth, instead of regularly pulling out her phone so that the rejects of William McKinley High School could coo over a baby they'd never even met.

The Skanks were a fucked up, sometimes-demented little family, but there was no way Quinn was getting back her old family if she was in love with – _bonded_ – to a girl.

"I think it might be more than that."

"Yeah well, don't think too much, you'll hurt yourself."

She now sported a bruise on her arm from that remark, and Quinn touched it gingerly, grinning to herself as she waited in the emptiness of Rachel's bedroom. But ever present in her mind, when Rachel came back in and smiled at her in a way that didn't quite reach her eyes, was the question.

_What are you so afraid of_?

And Quinn could feel that little space that wasn't quite her stomach and not quite her lungs, clench.

"It'll be all right."

Quinn tilted her head and looked at Rachel, confused.

"What?"

"It's okay," Rachel replied, slowly. "You're all right."

The burn, the hurt, was replaced by a chill, and Quinn stared at Rachel as she heard her own words – _thoughts _ – echoed back at her.

"You think so?" she asked, her throat dry and scratchy, and she swallowed hard.

"Funny Girl?" was all Rachel said in return, and Quinn nodded.

She'd never really paid that much attention to Funny Girl, and tonight wasn't any exception, though Quinn hoped that if Rachel guessed, she'd understand that there was far too much else on her mind for her to care about Nicky Arnstein and Fanny's desperate love for him. But what she did care about was that she was sitting next to Rachel on her bed, not too close but close enough that she could feel the warmth from the other girl. She could hear the softness of Rachel's voice and Quinn smiled, staring down at her hands and tracing the ring finger on her right.

Rachel's voice was a powerhouse. Rachel's voice could reach to the farthest row of the largest audience, could reach to the angels even, and yet, sitting next to Quinn, her voice was soft and gentle and almost uncertain. It was as if, because she was next to Quinn, Rachel was afraid for her voice to rise, to soar like Quinn knew it could. Quinn knew Rachel struggled with people thinking she was annoying, struggled with _Finn_ thinking she was annoying, and she felt an ache that this time she knew was completely _hers_.

Because Rachel Berry was nervous and her voice was soft. And all Quinn wanted her to do, was sing out.

The next day, Quinn didn't go to Rachel's.

She sent a quick text to let her know, thinking that she didn't really _have_ to let her know, but it was a rare night when Judy Fabray decided to stay home, and she actually wanted to spend time with her daughter, which was even rarer. Quinn would've been lying to herself if she'd said that she wasn't disappointed about missing a day with Rachel, but she was comfortable with lying to herself anyway, and she didn't really want to admit that she was disappointed.

But two minutes after the text message was sent the disappointment came, muted and so fleeting that she almost doubted she'd actually felt it. Still, there was something false to Quinn about the smiley face that accompanied Rachel's return text of "That's okay! We'll hang out some other time."

Hang out.

Was that really what they were doing? Quinn wondered. To say they were hanging out meant that they were doing… what friends do. And they _were_ friends… kind of. Friends that were bonded. Friends that sat awkwardly in a bedroom and skirted around the truth while playing board games or watching musicals, talking quietly about what classes they were taking their senior year and not talking about exactly how their senior year was going to go. Not talking about glee, because Quinn was still convinced that she wasn't going back.

They couldn't pay her to deal with Will Schuester again. Or the smirking face of Finn, when he was supposed to be hers. She'd been meant to be with him; even her dad had liked him, as dopey as Finn was and even if her mother had once commented "He's a nice boy, Quinnie, but I do wonder if you're a bit out of his league."

And then the idiot had sung and, well, Quinn was just out.

"I've missed this," Judy said, wrapping her arm around Quinn as they sat on the couch, the opening scene of Bring It On flaring across the television screen.

Quinn smiled. "Me too, Mom. Me too."

Thirty minutes into the movie, her mom was fast asleep and snoring loudly, and Quinn sighed. She got up to turn off the TV, retrieving a pillow and blanket from the hall closet and covering up her mother before going to her own room. She glanced at the clock.

Seven p.m.

Rachel would still be awake, and maybe she could… no, Quinn decided. She didn't need to go over to Berry's house. She could stay home and play on her computer, or maybe try to catch a few Pokémon even though she hadn't tried to do that since she was eleven. She didn't need to see Rachel. She could listen to music or watch something on television. Maybe her mom would wake up in a little while and not be able to get back to sleep so they could watch something else.

Maybe her dad would call. If he still had her number.

She tried to read. She tried to listen to her iPod. She tried to surf the internet, to catch some Pokémon, to watch some television.

In the end, Quinn ended up flat on her back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She glanced at her clock.

Nine p.m.

She sighed again.

Quinn picked up her phone, swiping past the lock screen and loading up her text messages. Rachel's smiley, her cheery words, stared up at her, and she knew they were fake. She'd felt it, as quiet and controlled as it was. She wondered…

She rested the phone on her chest, closing her eyes and concentrating. Just like she did when she was in the dark, Quinn took deep, slow breaths, she focused her thoughts on one thing, on one _person_… and she knew.

She knew that down the street, in a little house with green siding, a window was still open.

She picked up her phone again.

Thirty minutes later, Rachel extended her hand and hoisted Quinn over the sill, holding steady until Quinn righted herself in the middle of her bedroom floor.

Her hand felt empty when Rachel let go of it.

"You're extremely lucky that the view to this side of the house is limited," Rachel said, a little primly, as she seated herself on her bed and looked at Quinn. Blue pajamas this time, her hair in braided pigtails with loose strands falling into her face.

"Otherwise the neighbors would have thought you were a stalker breaking into my room for illegal purposes."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "You kept your window open, that's not exactly safe either."

Rachel sniffed. "I shall concede that point."

"Yeah, you will," Quinn said, and felt a little twinge of pride that for once, Rachel Berry had given in to _her_.

"Movies?" she suggested.

"Glee?" Rachel said, and Quinn groaned.

"Why do we have to do this again? I've told you, I don't want to come back to Glee."

"_I_ want you to come back to Glee. I-I miss you."

"Rach, school hasn't even started back yet, you can't say that you miss me in Glee."

"I would advise you to not tell Rachel Berry that she cannot do something, because that tends to not make her very happy."

"And when Rachel's not happy, nobody's happy?" Quinn retorted.

"Basically."

Quinn snorted, and shook her head. "You really think you'd miss me?"

"Of course I would. We all would."

"Doubt it."

She couldn't think of anyone who would miss her. Puck had barely spoken to her since Beth, she preferred the tree stay as far away from her as possible, and she had no desire to become BFFs with Santana and Brittany again anytime soon. Maybe Artie might miss her, or Tina. Mike, she'd always liked Mike. And Sam.

Sam had come to see her just a few days earlier. He'd blinked a little, when she'd answered the door after his knock, and he'd seemed so shocked that Quinn had briefly been afraid he'd start stuttering in Na'vi.

She'd tried to break it off gently with him, over the phone after prom, because Sam was a nice guy and he'd always been sweet to her, if a little too dorky. It was endearing, and she'd briefly wondered if they could be just friends now.

Quinn had tried to think of what to tell him. _It's not you, it's me. It's just not working. I'm just not that into you. You didn't know your planets and I can't handle that. Your credit score's not that good_.

"I'm gay."

"Oh. Oh, well that… that's cool," Sam had said, and Quinn had wanted to cry, because his face and his voice had become so full of sympathy because Sam knew. Sam Evans knew what life and home had been like because he'd been one of the few people she could talk to, in between make out sessions, before everything had all went wrong.

Maybe he'd miss her in Glee.

But no, really, the only one that Quinn could think would actually miss her… would be Rachel. And the fact that Rachel Berry, of all people, might miss her…

_What are you so afraid of?_

"Quinn?"

"Hmm?"

"When school starts—"

"Rachel—"

"_When school starts_," Rachel insisted, and Quinn grumbled to herself, but kept quiet.

When Rachel Berry wasn't happy, nobody was happy.

"Things are going to go back to the way they were, aren't they?"

The way they were.

Quinn wouldn't go back to her Cheerios uniform, that much she knew. Not back to Cheerios, not back to Glee. Not back to Finn or to Puck or to Sam, not back to Beth. She'd thought, just a few short weeks earlier, that she'd be looking forward to it. To walking down the hall with her head held high as everyone around her stopped and stared, because _oh my god_ Quinn Fabray had dyed her hair pink! Maybe she'd shove a few people's heads in the toilet for good measure, glare at a Cheerio until they ran off in confusion. Schuester's face, Sylvester's face, those had been the faces she'd most looked forward to seeing.

But now…

"Yeah, Rachel."

Back to ignoring her. Back to trying to forget about prom, to keeping the ring shoved in her backpack or in a corner of her bedside drawer, back to trying not to feel… whatever this was that she was feeling right now.

Rachel's big brown eyes weren't making it any easier, and neither was the necklace that she still didn't take off, even to sleep.

She was like a puppy, Quinn thought, and for a brief moment the idea made her angry, that Rachel was still following after her like a lost little puppy trying to find her way home. And the fact that Rachel had done that even _before_ prom night, even before they were even _friends_…

Nobody would miss her in Glee, but somehow, some way, Rachel Berry had always been there, pulling her back in.

And _that_ was what Quinn Fabray was so afraid of.

Rachel Berry, pulling her in.

Pulling her into this feeling, this bond, this connection between them that had started with a _slap_, and really, how screwed up was that, no matter what Coach had tried to say? She had hit Rachel, _hit_ her, and Rachel was supposedly the person that she was now supposed to take care of? They didn't really learn what they were supposed to do; bonding was so rare that it wasn't like there were _classes_ on how to take care of a submissive, or even how to take care of a Dominant. Quinn was completely, utterly clueless, but she was pretty sure that a relationship wasn't supposed to start on a slap.

She was pretty sure that no matter what her feelings about Rachel Berry, Rachel deserved better than that.

They sat in awkward silence for a few moments more, before Quinn finally got up and shouldered her backpack, moving towards the window once more, as she always did.

"Quinn?"

Rachel's voice was small, and Quinn's arms were trembling with the strain of holding herself up, but she leaned into the windowsill and looked across at her.

"Yeah, Rach?"

_Rach._

"You feel it, don't you?"

She knew. She knew what Rachel was asking, but still, Quinn said dumbly, "Feel what?"

Rachel shrugged, her fingers reaching up to trace the line of the necklace, then out to Quinn's finger, stroking it lightly.

Quinn shivered in spite of herself.

"It."

She almost couldn't hold herself up; she wasn't as fit as she used to be and Rachel's touch had rendered her nearly helpless. It felt so stupid, she thought to herself. She was perched in a tree, at 11 p.m. at night, looking at Rachel Berry who was looking at her.

And she was so small, Quinn thought. So small and tiny, one finger twisting in her hair and her teeth biting her lip again. It amazed her that Rachel could hold so much power in her lungs and in her determination but at the same time her face could be so vulnerable, looking at Quinn with the same insecurity and… and "_love me"_ expression that she would devote to Finn Hudson.

But Finn Hudson was… he was…

He wasn't hers. He was never supposed to have been hers.

Her muscles were straining and burning so much that it nearly brought tears to her eyes, but that small space that wasn't her stomach and wasn't her lungs but was her _heart_ caused Quinn to pull herself up as best she could with one arm and reach across the windowsill.

Her fingers lightly brushed Rachel's hair, tucking a loose soft tendril behind her ear.

Rachel flushed pink.

_What are you so afraid of?_

"Yeah, Rach," Quinn said, her voice barely above a whisper.

It would be so easy, she thought to herself, staring at Rachel. She was so small and so vulnerable, wanting and needing care and all it would take was one movement, one gentle touch, and all Quinn could see was Rachel's lips.

Her muscles screamed with the effort; Quinn leaned forward again…

And kissed Rachel's cheek.

"I feel it too."


End file.
